Rennan Barkana's Page of Quotes on Economics & Education

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
--- Winston Churchill

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools."
--- Herbert Spencer

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."
--- Winston Churchill

"The budget should be balanced..., the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled... lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
--- Marcus Tullius Cicero (1'st century B.C.)

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
--- Benjamin Franklin

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."
--- Winston Churchill

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."
--- Barry Goldwater

"If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone."
--- Benjamin Franklin

"Never spend your money before you have it."
--- Thomas Jefferson

"To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not."
--- Thomas Paine

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. "
--- Adam Smith

"What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it."
--- Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations)

"We do not commonly see in a tax a diminution of freedom, and yet it clearly is one."
--- Herbert Spencer

"Strong as it looks at the outset, State-agency perpetually disappoints every one. Puny as are its first stages, private efforts daily achieve results that astound the world."
--- Herbert Spencer

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
--- Thomas Jefferson

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."
--- Benjamin Franklin

"Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages."
--- Michel de Montaigne

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
--- Thomas Jefferson

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