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No very deep knowledge of economics is usually needed for grasping the immediate effects of a measure but the task of economics is to foretell the remoter effects, and so to allow us to avoid such acts as attempt to remedy a present ill by sowing the seeds of a much greater ill for the future.

Ludwig von Mises

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Ludwig von Mises
Age: 92 †
Born: 1881
Born: September 29
Died: 1973
Died: October 10
Economist
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Lemberg
Austria
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Mises
Much
Deep
Task
Sowing
Needed
Measure
Grasping
Present
Economics
Remedy
Liberty
Avoid
Immediate
Economic
Tasks
Ill
Greater
Allow
Attempt
Knowledge
Usually
Acts
Remoter
Future
Effects
Seeds
Foretell

More quotes by Ludwig von Mises

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He who acts under an emotional impulse also acts. What distinguishes an emotional action from other actions is the valuation of input and output. Emotions disarrange valuations. Inflamed with passion, man sees the goal as more desirable and the price he has to pay for it as less burdensome than he would in cool deliberation.
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You call it a 'loophole' when the government still allows you some freedom.
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Progressive taxation of income and profits means that precisely those parts of the income which people would have saved and invested are taxed away
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Anarchism misunderstands the real nature of man. It would be practicable only in a world of angels and saints
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The first socialists were the intellectuals they, and not the masses, are the backbone of Socialism.
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On the unhampered market there prevails an irresistible tendency to employ every factor of production for the best possible satisfaction of the most urgent needs of the consumers. If the government interfered with this process, it can only impair satisfaction it can never improve it.
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In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production
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This, then, is freedom in the external life of man-that he is independent of the arbitrary power of his fellows.
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A genius is always a teacher, never a pupil he is always self-made.
Ludwig von Mises
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A nation, therefore, has no right to say to a province: You belong to me, I want to take you. A province consists of its inhabitants. If anybody has a right to be heard in this case it is these inhabitants. Boundary disputes should be settled by plebiscite.
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Whoever wishes peace among peoples must fight statism.
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Do the American voters know that the unprecedented improvement in their standard of living that the last hundred years brought was the result of the steady rise in the per-head quota of capital invested? Do they realize that every measure leading to capital decumulation jeopardizes their prosperity?
Ludwig von Mises
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No one can escape the influence of a prevailing ideology.
Ludwig von Mises
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The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority.
Ludwig von Mises
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The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans. He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute preeminence of his own plan.
Ludwig von Mises
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The history of mankind is the history of ideas. For it is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human action, determine the ultimate ends men aim at, and the choice of the means employed for the attainment of these ends.
Ludwig von Mises
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Economically considered, war and revolution are always bad business.
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Nobody is in a position to decree what should make a fellow man happier.
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The state is the only institution entitled to apply coercion and compulsion and to inflict harm upon individuals. This tremendous power cannot be abandoned to the discretion of some men, however competent and clever they may deem themselves. It is necessary to restrict its application. This is the task of the laws.
Ludwig von Mises
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All people, entrepreneurs as well as non-entrepreneurs, look askance upon any profits earned by other people. Envy is a common weakness of men. People are loath to acknowledge the fact that they themselves could have earned profits if they had displayed the same foresight and judgment the successful businessman did.
Ludwig von Mises