Bob Jones > Bob's Quotes

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine the can design.”
― F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism

“The forces of the market are just that: They are forces; they are like the wind and the tides; they are things that if you want to try to ignore them, you ignore them at your peril, and if you understand that they are there, working their way, if you find a way of ordering your life that is compatible with these forces, indeed which harnesses these forces to the benefit of your society, that's the way to go.”
― Arnold Harberger

“Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export.... Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea -- in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders. ”
― Thomas Sowell

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“It is because every individual knows little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.”
― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty

“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted ...but to weigh and consider.”
― Francis Bacon

“Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.”
― Thomas Sowell

“The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed
beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to
establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which
may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the
hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other
principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every
single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress
upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and
harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably,
and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.”
― F.A. Hayek

“The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it.

He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.”
― Adam Smith

“A few lines of reasoning can change the way we see the world.”
― Steven E. Landsburg

“Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.”
― Martin Luther

“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
― John Calvin

“Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.”
― Oscar Wilde