Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Man is not, like the animals, an obsequious puppet of instincts and sensual impulses. Man has the power to suppress instinctive desires, he has a will of his own, he chooses between incompatible ends.
Ludwig von Mises
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Animals
Puppets
Animal
Impulses
Desire
Chooses
Ends
Sensual
Obsequious
Power
Instincts
Puppet
Men
Impulse
Incompatible
Like
Desires
Instinctive
Instinct
Suppress
More quotes by Ludwig von Mises
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.
Ludwig von Mises
Scientific research sooner or later, but inevitably, encounters something ultimately given that it cannot trace back to something else of which it would appear as the regular or necessary derivative. Scientific progress consists in pushing further back this ultimately given.
Ludwig von Mises
Changes in human conditions are brought about by the pioneering of the cleverest and most energetic men. They take the lead and the rest of mankind follows them little by little.
Ludwig von Mises
The foundation of any and every civilization, including our own, is private ownership of the means of production. Whoever wishes to criticize modern civilization, therefore, begins with private property.
Ludwig von Mises
What is a loophole? If the law does not punish a definite action or does not tax a definite thing, this is not a loophole. It is simply the law.
Ludwig von Mises
What mankind needs today is liberation from the rule of nonsensical slogans and a return to sound reasoning.
Ludwig von Mises
It is not enough for [the investor] to know all the factors that can possibly contribute to the determination of a future event. In order to anticipate correctly they must also anticipate correctly the quantity as it were of each factor's contribution and the instant at which its contribution will become effective.
Ludwig von Mises
In talking about equality and asking vehemently for its realization, nobody advocates a curtailment of his own present income.
Ludwig von Mises
Economic progress is the work of the savers, who accumulate capital, and of the entrepreneurs, who turn capital to new uses.
Ludwig von Mises
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.
Ludwig von Mises
Our whole civilization rests on the fact that men have always succeeded in beating off the attack of the re-distributors.
Ludwig von Mises
Not mythical material productive forces, but reason and ideas determine the course of human affairs. What is needed to stop the trend toward socialism and despotism is common-sense and moral courage.
Ludwig von Mises
Nobody can be at the same time a correct bureaucrat and an innovator
Ludwig von Mises
The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.
Ludwig von Mises
Taxes are necessary. But the system of discriminatory taxation universally accepted under the misleading name of progressive taxation of income and inheritance is not a mode of taxation. It is rather a mode of disguised expropriation of the successful capitalists and entrepreneurs.
Ludwig von Mises
The usual terminology of political language is stupid. What is 'left' and what is 'right'? Why should Hitler be 'right' and Stalin, his temporary friend, be 'left'? Who is 'reactionary' and who is 'progressive'? Reaction against an unwise policy is not to be condemned. And progress towards chaos is not to be commended.
Ludwig von Mises
Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.
Ludwig von Mises
There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
Ludwig von Mises
Depression is the aftermath of credit expansion.
Ludwig von Mises
The Pseudo-liberals monopolize the teaching jobs at many universities. Only men who agree with them are appointed as teachers and instructors of the social sciences, and only textbooks supporting their ideas are used.
Ludwig von Mises