Every man aims at avoiding what causes him pain; the activities of government ultimately consist in the infliction of pain. All great achievements of mankind were the product of a spontaneous effort on the part of individuals; government substitutes coercion for voluntary action.

— Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises Quotes

An intellectual inferiority of the masses would manifest itself most evidently in their aiming at the abolition of the system in which they themselves are supreme and are served by the elite of the most talented men.

— Ludwig von Mises

What those people who ask for equality have in mind is always an increase in their own power to consume.

— Ludwig von Mises

Planning other people’s actions means to prevent them from planning for themselves, means to deprive them of their essentially human quality, means enslaving them.

— Ludwig von Mises

Peace and not war is the father of all things.

— Ludwig von Mises

He who disdains the fall in infant mortality and the gradual disappearance of famines and plagues may cast the first stone upon the materialism of the economists.

— Ludwig von Mises
Firsts

The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent on the people’s will in such a way that they may be peaceably changed if conflict occurs.

— Ludwig von Mises

The member of a contractual society is free because he serves others only in serving himself. What restrains him is only the inevitable natural phenomenon of scarcity.

— Ludwig von Mises

It is necessary to curb the power of government. This is the task of all constitutions, bills of rights and laws. This is the meaning of all struggles which men have fought for liberty.

— Ludwig von Mises

Perhaps there are somewhere in the infinite universe beings whose minds outrank our minds to the same extent as our minds surpass those of the insects. Perhaps there will once somewhere live beings who will look upon us with the same condescension as we look upon amoebae.

— Ludwig von Mises

Aggressors cannot wage total war without introducing Socialism.

— Ludwig von Mises

Thoughts and ideas are not phantoms. They are real things. Although intangible and immaterial, they are factors in bringing about changes in the realm of tangible and material things.

— Ludwig von Mises
Real

The only means to well-being is to increase the quantity of products. This is what business aims at.

— Ludwig von Mises

It is solely bigness in business which makes it possible to supply the masses with all those products the present-day American common man does not want to do without. Luxury goods for the few can be produced in small shops. Luxury goods for the many require big business.

— Ludwig von Mises

Western civilization is based upon the libertarian principle, and all its achievements are the results of the action of free men.

— Ludwig von Mises

The people who think that the power of big business is enormous are mistaken.

— Ludwig von Mises

When we call a capitalist society a consumers democracy we mean that the power to dispose of the means of production, which belongs to the entrepreneurs and capitalists, can only be acquired by means of the consumers ballot, held daily in the marketplace.

— Ludwig von Mises

The essence of Keynesianism is its complete failure to conceive the role that saving and capital accumulation play in the improvement of economic conditions.

— Ludwig von Mises

In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.

— Ludwig von Mises

Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.

— Ludwig von Mises

What matters is not the allocation of portions out of a fund presented to man by nature. The problem is rather to further those social institutions which enable people to continue and to enlarge the production of all those things which they need.

— Ludwig von Mises
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