Henry Hazlitt Quotes

Quotes about:

• The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Success, Cheating, Freedom

  74 Copy quote

• If a government resorts to inflation, that is, creates money in order to cover its budget deficits or expands credit in order to stimulate business, then no power on earth, no gimmick, device, trick or even indexation can prevent its economic consequences.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Order, Credit

  57 Copy quote

• The government has nothing to give to anybody that it doesn't first take from someone else.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Giving, Firsts

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.70, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  20 Copy quote

• When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: ‘Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.’ It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Citizens, Littles

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.228, Crown Business

  46 Copy quote

• The only real cure for poverty is production.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Real, Poverty, Cures

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.95, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  5 Copy quote

• The envious are more likely to be mollified by seeing others deprived of some advantage than by gaining it for themselves. It is not what they lack that chiefly troubles them, but what others have.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Trouble, Envious, Advantage

  Henry Hazlitt, Hans F. Sennholz (1993). “The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt”, Foundation for Economic Education

  23 Copy quote

• The essential function of the State is to maintain peace, justice, law, and order, and to protect the individual citizen against aggression, violence, theft, and fraud.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Order, Law, Justice

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.183, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  7 Copy quote

• No matter whether it is their intention or not, almost anything that the rich can legally do tends to help the poor. The spending of the rich gives employment to the poor. But the saving of the rich, and their investment of these savings in the means of production, gives just as much employment, and in addition makes that employment constantly more productive and more highly paid, while it also constantly increases and cheapens the production of necessities and amenities for the masses.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Mean, Giving, Saving

  Henry Hazlitt, Hans F. Sennholz (1993). “The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt”, Foundation for Economic Education

  7 Copy quote

• Practically all government attempts to redistribute wealth and income tend to smother productive incentives and lead toward general impoverishment.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Income, Incentives

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.228, Crown Business

  43 Copy quote

• Government provided free tuition tends more and more to produce a uniform conformist education, with college faculties ultimately dependent for their jobs on the government, and so developing an economic interest in profession and teaching a statist, pro-government, and socialist ideology.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Jobs, Teaching, College

  20 Copy quote

• Contrary to age-old prejudices, the wealth of the rich is not the cause of the poverty of the poor, but helps to alleviate that poverty.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Age, Prejudice, Poverty

  Henry Hazlitt (1996). “The Conquest of Poverty”

  8 Copy quote

• The crying need today is not for more laws, but for fewer. The world must be saved from its saviors. If the friends of liberty and law could have only one slogan it should be: Stop the remedies!

  Henry Hazlitt

  Law, Liberty, Needs

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.216, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  7 Copy quote

• The 'private sector' of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and the 'public sector' is, in fact, the coercive sector.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Political, Liberty, Libertarian

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.121, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  31 Copy quote

• The capitalist system has lifted mankind out of mass poverty. It is this system that in the last century, in the last generation, even in the last decade, has acceleratively been changing the face of the world, and has provided the masses of mankind with amenities that even kings did not possess or imagine a few generations ago.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Kings, Lasts, Poverty

  Henry Hazlitt (1996). “The Conquest of Poverty”

  10 Copy quote

• The vital consideration of incentives is almost systematically overlooked in the proposals of agitators for more and bigger government welfare schemes. We should all be concerned about the plight of the poor and unfortunate. But the hard two-part question that any plan for relieving poverty must answer is: How can we mitigate the penalties of failure and misfortune without undermining the incentives to effort and success.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government Welfare, Two, Effort

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.211, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  9 Copy quote

• The envious are not satisfied with equality; they secretly yearn for superiority and revenge. In the French Revolution of 1848, a woman coal-heaver is said to have remarked to a richly dressed lady: 'Yes, madam, everything's going to be equal now; I shall go in silks and you'll carry coal.'

  Henry Hazlitt

  Revenge, Coal, Revolution

  Henry Hazlitt (1996). “The Conquest of Poverty”

  22 Copy quote

• Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man

  Henry Hazlitt

  Men, Study, Economics

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.11, Crown Business

  37 Copy quote

• The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Art, Liberty, Groups

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.13, Crown Business

  19 Copy quote

• Government can't give us anything without depriving us of something else.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Giving, Political

  13 Copy quote

• The larger the percentage of the national income taken by taxes the greater the deterrent to private production and employment. When the total tax burden grows beyond a bearable size, the problem of devising taxes that will not discourage and disrupt production becomes insoluble.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Taken, Political, Income

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.35, Crown Business

  36 Copy quote

• Government welfarism, with its ever-increasing army of pensioners and other beneficiaries, is fatally easy to launch and fatally easy to extend, but almost impossible to bring to a halt - and quite impossible politically to reverse, no matter how obvious and catastrophic its consequences become.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Army, Government, Matter

  11 Copy quote

• Capitalism will continue to eliminate mass poverty in more and more places and to an increasingly marked extent if it is merely permitted to do so.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Poverty, Mass, Capitalism

  Henry Hazlitt (1996). “The Conquest of Poverty”

  6 Copy quote

• When any welfare scheme is being proposed, its political sponsors always dwell on what a generous and compassionate government should pay to Paul; they neglect to mention that this additional money must be seized from Peter.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Political, Pay

  3 Copy quote

• Government-to-government aid rests on socialistic assumptions and promotes socialism and stagnation, whereas private foreign investment rest on capitalist assumptions and promotes private enterprise and maximum economic growth.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Government, Growth, Assumption

  13 Copy quote

• When the government makes loans or subsidies to business, what it does is to tax successful private business in order to support unsuccessful private business.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Philosophy, Successful, Government

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.45, Crown Business

  33 Copy quote

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