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Public works are not accomplished by the miraculous power of a magic wand. They are paid for by funds taken away from the citizens.

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
Citizens
Libertarianism
Works
Miraculous
Magic
Fund
Liberty
Libertarian
Public
Accomplished
Taken
Economics
Wand
Away
Gold
Wands
Power
Paid
Funds

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In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.
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Under a socialist mode of production all personal incentives which selfishness provides under capitalism are removed, and a premium is put upon laziness and negligence. Whereas in a capitalist society selfishness incites everyone to the utmost diligence, in a socialist society it makes for inertia and laxity.
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The continued existence of society depends upon private property.
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Experience shows that nothing is operated with less economy and with more waste of labor and material of every kind than public services and undertakings. Private enterprise on the other hand naturally induces the owner to work with the greatest economy in his own interest.
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Economic knowledge necessarily leads to liberalism
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Mankind does not drink alcohol because there are breweries, distilleries, and vineyards men brew beer, distill spirits, and grow grapes because of the demand for alcoholic drinks.
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The consumers are asking for, they lose their office. Their task is service to the consumer. Profit and loss are the instruments by means of which the consumers keep a tight rein on all business activities.
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War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings.
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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?
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Only stilted pedants can conceive the idea that there are absolute norms to tell what is beautiful and what is not. They try to derive from the works of the past a code of rules with which, as they fancy, the writers and artists of the future should comply. But the genius does not cooperate with the pundit.
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The government and its chiefs do not have the powers of the mythical Santa Claus. They cannot spend except by taking out of the pockets of some people for the benefit of others.
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No one can escape the influence of a prevailing ideology.
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Against nature and within nature there is no freedom.
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The main achievement of economics is that it has provided a theory of peaceful human cooperation. This is why the harbingers of violent conflict have branded it as a dismal science and why this age of wars, civil wars, and destruction has no use for it.
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War can really cause no economic boom, at least not directly, since an increase in wealth never does result from destruction of goods.
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You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you. If this be arrogance, as some of your critics observed, it is still the truth that had to said in the age of the Welfare State.
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The sharper the competition, the better it serves its social function to improve economic production.
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The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.
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Public opinion always wants easy money, that is, low interest rates.
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The truth is that the government cannot give if it does not take from somebody...It is not in the power of the government to make everybody more prosperous.
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