Quotes by Ludwig von Mises

About Ludwig von Mises:

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises is best known for his work on praxeology, a study of human choice and action. Mises emigrated to the United States in 1940. Mises's thought has exerted significant influence on the libertarian movement in the United States since the mid-20th century.
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The law-abiding citizen by his labor serves both himself and his fellow man and thereby integrates himself peacefully into the social order. The robber, on the other hand, is intent, not on honest toil, but on the forcible appropriation of the fruits...

Ludwig von Mises

If one prevents a man from working for the good of society while at the same time providing for the satisfaction of his own needs, then only one way remains open to him: to make himself richer and others poorer by the violent oppression and spoliatio...

Ludwig von Mises

Most of us have no sympathy with the rich idler who spends his life in pleasure without ever doing any work. But even he fulfills a function in the life of the social organism. He sets an example of luxury that awakens in the multitude a consciousnes...

Ludwig von Mises

Against what is stupid, nonsensical, erroneous, and evil, [classical] liberalism fights with the weapons of the mind, and not with brute force and repression.

Ludwig von Mises

In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.

Ludwig von Mises

More dangerous than bayonets and cannon are the weapons of the mind.

Ludwig von Mises

Repression by brute force is always a confession of the inability to make use of the better weapons of the intellect—better because they alone give promise of final success.

Ludwig von Mises

As regards the social apparatus of repression and coercion, the government, there cannot be any question of freedom. Government is essentially the negation of liberty. It is the recourse to violence or threat of violence in order to make all people o...

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 ...

Ludwig von Mises

The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution.

Ludwig von Mises

The elimination of profit, whatever methods may be resorted to for its execution, must transform society into a senseless jumble.

Ludwig von Mises

Sovereignty must not be used for inflicting harm on anyone, whether citizen or foreigner.

Ludwig von Mises

The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.

Ludwig von Mises

Wars of aggression are popular nowadays with those nations convinced that only victory and conquest could improve their material well-being.

Ludwig von Mises

Innovation is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public.

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

Common man does not speculate about the great problems. With regard to them he relies upon other people's authority, he behaves as "every decent fellow must behave,'' he is like a sheep in the herd. It is precisely this intellectual inertia that char...

Ludwig von Mises

There is not the slightest analogy between playing games and the conduct of business within a market society. The card player wins money by outsmarting his antagonist. The businessman makes money by supplying customers with goods they want to acquire...

Ludwig von Mises

Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.

Ludwig von Mises

The desire for an increase of wealth can be satisfied through exchange, which is the only method possible in a capitalist economy, or by violence and petition as in a militarist society, where the strong acquire by force, the weak by petitioning.

Ludwig von Mises

Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace buil...

Ludwig von Mises

Author Bio

  • NameLudwig von Mises
  • Descriptionaustrian economist
  • BornSeptember 29, 1881
  • DiedOctober 10, 1973
  • CountryUnited States Of America; Austria
  • ProfessionEconomist; Philosopher