The times call for courage. The times call for hard work. But if the demands are high, it is because the stakes are even higher. They are nothing less than the future of human liberty, which means the future of civilization. Henry Hazlitt More Quotes by Henry Hazlitt More Quotes From Henry Hazlitt The only way we could remember would be by constant re-reading, for knowledge unused tends to drop out of mind. Knowledge used does not need to be remembered; practice forms habits and habits make memory unnecessary. The rule is nothing; the application is everything. Henry Hazlitt reading practice memories Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine - the special pleading of selfish interests. Henry Hazlitt medicine selfish men The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it. Henry Hazlitt errors past ideas The way to get a maximum rate of 'economic growth' assuming this to be our aim - is to give maximum encouragement to production, employment, saving, and investment. And the way to do this is to maintain a free market and a sound currency. Henry Hazlitt growth encouragement giving Modern capitalism benefited the masses in a double way - both by greatly increasing the wages of the masses of workers and greatly reducing the real prices they had to pay for what was produced. Henry Hazlitt wages real pay From a strictly economic point of view, buying gold in a major inflation and holding it probably presents the least risk of capital loss of any investment or speculation. Henry Hazlitt risk views loss It is possible to increase paper-money income to any amount by debasing the currency. But real income can only be increased by working harder or more efficiently, saving more, investing more, and producing more. Henry Hazlitt investing income real The only way government bureaucrats know of keeping prosperity going is to inflate some more - to increase the deficit or to pump more money into the system. Henry Hazlitt pumps government way We cannot distribute more wealth than is created. We cannot in the long run pay labor as a whole more than it produces. Henry Hazlitt running pay long ..either immediately or ultimately every dollar of government spending must be raised through a dollar of taxation. Once we look at the matter. In this way, the supposed miracles of government spending will appear in another light. Henry Hazlitt miracle government light One of the worst features of all the plans for sharing wealth and equalizing or guaranteeing incomes is that they lose sight of the conditions and institution s that are necessary to create wealth and income in the first place. Henry Hazlitt income sight firsts Yet it ought to be clear that a minimum wage law is, at best, a limited weapon for combatting the evil of low wages, and that the possible good to be achieved by such a law can exceed the possible harm only in proportion as its aims are mode. Henry Hazlitt evil law numbers Inflation is not only unnecessary for economic growth. As long as it exists it is the enemy of economic growth. Henry Hazlitt growth long enemy The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economists sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups Henry Hazlitt groups eye looks In a free enterprise system, with an honest and stable money, there is dominantly a close link between effort and productivity, on the one hand, and economic reward on the other. Inflation severs this link. Reward comes to depend less and less on effort and production, and more and more on successful gambling and luck. Henry Hazlitt gambling successful hands For every alleged benefit that the politicians confer upon us, they must necessarily deprive us of something else. Henry Hazlitt benefits politician Government-to-government foreign aid promotes statism, centralized planning, socialism, dependence, pauperization, inefficiency, and waste. It prolongs the poverty it is designed to cure. Voluntary private investment in private enterprise, on the other hand, promotes capitalism, production, independence, and self-reliance. Henry Hazlitt government self hands Diluting the money supply with paper is the moral equivalent of diluting the milk supply with water. Henry Hazlitt milk paper water Relief, or redistribution of income, voluntary or coerced, is never the true solution of poverty, but at best a makeshift, which may mask the disease and mitigate the pain, but provides no basic cure. Henry Hazlitt income relief pain New taxes are so unpopular that most 'social' handout schemes are originally enacted without enough increased taxation to pay for them. The result is chronic government deficits, paid for by the issuance of additional paper money. Henry Hazlitt taxation government paper
