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In the world of reality, life, and human action there is no such thing as interests independent of ideas, preceding them temporarily and logically. What a man considers his interest is the result of his ideas.

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
Reality
Temporarily
Ideas
Considers
Human
Interests
Humans
Result
Thing
Independent
Men
Results
Life
Interest
Preceding
World
Action
Logically

More quotes by Ludwig von Mises

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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
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The entrepreneur profits to the extent he has succeeded in serving the consumers better than other people have done.
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The prevailing legal and moral views of a time are held not only by those whom they benefit but by those, too, who appear to suffer from them. Their domination is expressed in that fact- that the people from whom they claim sacrifice accept them.
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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.
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Every innovation makes its appearance as a 'luxury' of the few well-to-do. After industry has become aware of it, the luxury then becomes a 'necessity' for all.
Ludwig von Mises
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Anarchism misunderstands the real nature of man. It would be practicable only in a world of angels and saints
Ludwig von Mises
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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
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Inflation is the true opium of the people and it is administered to them by anticapitalist governments and parties.
Ludwig von Mises
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Nobody can be at the same time a correct bureaucrat and an innovator
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.
Ludwig von Mises
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Progress is precisely that which rules and regulations did not foresee.
Ludwig von Mises
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The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise.
Ludwig von Mises
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There can be no freedom in art and literature where the government determines who shall create them.
Ludwig von Mises
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It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary.
Ludwig von Mises
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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
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The philosophy commonly called individualism is a philosophy of social cooperation and the progressive intensification of the social nexus.
Ludwig von Mises
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In all countries with a settled bureaucracy people used to say: The cabinets come and go, but the bureaus remain.
Ludwig von Mises
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Capital is not a free gift of God or of nature. It is the outcome of a provident restriction of consumption on the part of man. It is created and increased by saving and maintained by the abstention from dissaving.
Ludwig von Mises
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Resentment is at work when one so hates somebody for his more favorable circumstances that one is prepared to bear heavy losses if only the hated one might also come to harm. Many of those who attack capitalism know very well that their situation under any other economic system will be less favorable.
Ludwig von Mises
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The market system makes all producers responsible to the consumer.
Ludwig von Mises