Henry Hazlitt Quotes

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• If a government resorts to inflation, that is, creates money in order to cover its budget deficits or expands credit in order to stimulate business, then no power on earth, no gimmick, device, trick or even indexation can prevent its economic consequences.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Order, Credit

  60 Copy quote

• The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Success, Cheating, Freedom

  81 Copy quote

• The surest way for a poor nation to stay poor is to harass, hobble, and straitjacket private enterprise or to discourage or destroy it by subsidized government competition, oppressive taxation, or outright expropriation.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Competition, Poor Nations

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.171, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  8 Copy quote

• Inflation makes the extension of socialism possible by providing the financial chaos in which it flourishes. The fact is that socialism and inflation are cause and effect, they feed on each other!

  Henry Hazlitt

  Causes, Facts, Chaos

  17 Copy quote

• The government has nothing to give to anybody that it doesn't first take from someone else.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Giving, Firsts

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.70, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  23 Copy quote

• When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: ‘Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.’ It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Citizens, Littles

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.228, Crown Business

  49 Copy quote

• The only way government bureaucrats know of keeping prosperity going is to inflate some more - to increase the deficit or to pump more money into the system.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Pumps, Way

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.138, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  8 Copy quote

• The solution to our problems is not more paternalism, laws, decrees, and controls, but the restoration of liberty and free enterprise, the restoration of incentives, to let loose the tremendous constructive energies of 300 million Americans.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Law, Liberty, Incentives

  6 Copy quote

• For every alleged benefit that the politicians confer upon us, they must necessarily deprive us of something else.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Benefits, Politician

  5 Copy quote

• Inflation is not only unnecessary for economic growth. As long as it exists it is the enemy of economic growth.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Long, Growth, Enemy

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.132, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  15 Copy quote

• Bureaucrats denounce private enterprise for the consequences of their own reckless policies and demand still more governmental controls.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Demand, Reckless, Enterprise

  5 Copy quote

• It is possible to increase paper-money income to any amount by debasing the currency. But real income can only be increased by working harder or more efficiently, saving more, investing more, and producing more.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Real, Income, Investing

  13 Copy quote

• Government provided free tuition tends more and more to produce a uniform conformist education, with college faculties ultimately dependent for their jobs on the government, and so developing an economic interest in profession and teaching a statist, pro-government, and socialist ideology.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Jobs, Teaching, College

  22 Copy quote

• Practically all government attempts to redistribute wealth and income tend to smother productive incentives and lead toward general impoverishment.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Income, Incentives

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.228, Crown Business

  45 Copy quote

• A Day never passes without some ardent reformer or group of reformers suggesting some new government intervention, some new statist scheme to fill some alleged 'need' or relieve some alleged distress.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Groups, Needs

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.204, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  8 Copy quote

• Arbitrary government power is being multiplied daily by the now practically unchallenged assumption that wherever there is any problem of any kind to be solved, government is the agency to step in and solve it.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Agency, Government, Arbitrary

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.183, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  7 Copy quote

• The way to get a maximum rate of 'economic growth' assuming this to be our aim - is to give maximum encouragement to production, employment, saving, and investment. And the way to do this is to maintain a free market and a sound currency.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Encouragement, Giving, Growth

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.135, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  6 Copy quote

• The quickest and surest way to production, prosperity, and economic growth is through private enterprise. The best way for governments to encourage private enterprise is to establish justice, to enforce contracts, to insure domestic peace and tranquility, to protect private property, and to secure the blessings of liberty including economic liberty - which means to stop putting obstacles in the way of private enterprise.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Mean, Blessing, Government

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.170, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  9 Copy quote

• The envious are more likely to be mollified by seeing others deprived of some advantage than by gaining it for themselves. It is not what they lack that chiefly troubles them, but what others have.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Trouble, Envious, Advantage

  Henry Hazlitt, Hans F. Sennholz (1993). “The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt”, Foundation for Economic Education

  25 Copy quote

• The consequences of inflation are malinvestment, waste, a wanton redistribution of wealth and income, the growth of speculation and gambling, immorality and corruption, disillusionment, social resentment, discontent, upheaval and riots, bankruptcy, increased government controls, and eventual collapse.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Gambling, Government, Growth

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.136, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  13 Copy quote

• The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Past, Errors, Ideas

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.6, Crown Business

  7 Copy quote

• The crying need today is not for more laws, but for fewer. The world must be saved from its saviors. If the friends of liberty and law could have only one slogan it should be: Stop the remedies!

  Henry Hazlitt

  Law, Liberty, Needs

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.216, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  9 Copy quote

• Once the idea is accepted that money is something whose supply is determined simply by the printing press, it becomes impossible for the politicians in power to resist the constant demands for further inflation.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Ideas, Demand, Determined

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.162, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  8 Copy quote

• Diluting the money supply with paper is the moral equivalent of diluting the milk supply with water.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Water, Paper, Milk

  Henry Hazlitt (1965). “What You Should Know about Inflation”, p.132, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  5 Copy quote

• The more things a government undertakes to do, the fewer things it can do completely. When the government tries to do everything it must do everything badly.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Trying, Fewer

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.183, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  12 Copy quote

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