C.S. Friedman Quotes

People struggle most with seeing new ways of doing things and often need help in breaking through their tradition-bound mindsets.

The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.

Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?

The central banks cannot control interest rates. That's a mistake. They can control a particular rate, such as the Federal Funds rate, if they want to, but they can't control interest rates.

If you're patient and you wait long enough, something will usually happen and it'll usually be something you don't like.

One thing we are sure of is there's no one like Nelson Mandela out there. That's too bad for us.

You never marry the person you first see 'Casablanca' with.

Jerry Jones and Chris Christie are probably the most important latent homosexual relationship since Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

We're first on executions. We're 49th in funding public education. We're in a race with Mississippi for the bottom, and we're winning.

So long as large sums of money are involved - and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal - it is literally impossible to stop the traffic, or even to make a serious reduction in its scope.

Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.

True love usually results in a hostage situation.

How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant.

On the whole I prefer cats to women because cats seldom if ever use the word 'relationship'.

Is there some society you know of that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed?

You don't accomplish much by swimming with the mainstream. Hell, a dead fish can do that.

Change your leaders, not your light bulbs.

Happiness is a moving target.

We've got to clear some of the room out of the prisons so we can put the bad guys in there, like the pedophiles and the politicians.

If you're lookin' for a helpin' hand, try the one at the end of your arm.

Sometimes, when my wife and I were going out to dinner, I would take my laptop with me and work in the car, so as to take advantage of the half hour going and coming.

We are led by lawyers who do not understand either technology or balance sheets.

As I very much liked to draw and paint as a child, I entered a special art program in high school, which was very much like being in an art school imbedded in a regular high school curriculum.

It created a global platform that allowed more people to plug and play, collaborate and compete, share knowledge and share work, than anything we have ever seen in the history of the world.

May the God of your choice bless and keep you. I respect Him as long as He does not circumcise me anymore.

What has six balls and screws Texans? The Texas Lottery.

And where are you going to get these angels who are going to run society for us?

The argument for the free market is a complicated and sophisticated one and depends on demonstration of secondary effects. I have confidence market efficiency will win out.

The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights.

I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it's only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater.

A real gold standard is thoroughly consistent with [classical] liberal principles and I, for one, am entirely in favor of measures promoting its development.

A lot of that momentum comes from the fact that Linux is free.

Just because we can't sell shares in nature doesn't mean it has no value.

When you argue for free markets, you are arguing against the trend.

The growing role that the government has played in financing and administering schooling has led not only the enormous waste of taxpayers money but also to a far poorer educational system.

There have been unions based on gold or silver, but not on fiat money - money tempted to inflate - put out by politically independent entities.

Some people are not capable of giving you what you're trying to get from them.

Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power.

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

I'll sign anything except bad legislation.

Most jobs are outsourced to the past, they aren't outsourced to India or Mexico or Pakistan or anywhere else.

The Great Depression in the United States was caused - I won't say caused, was enormously intensified and made far worse than it would have been by bad monetary policy.

Skilled leaders focus on "we," not "me."

If Willie Nelson had been Rosa Parks, there never would have been a civil rights movement in this country, because he refuses to leave the back of the bus.

You have to work at it if you want to be a good smoker. Especially today with all the non-smoking world constantly harassing you.

We've had to be creative to get on the ballot.

William Bennett is my patron saint, one of them. Redd Foxx is another.

Not all schooling is education nor all education, schooling.

The first thing I'll do if elected is demand a recount.

Every time you see a beautiful woman, just remember, somebody got tired of her.