Harry Browne Quotes

The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it.

The basic mistake is the assumption that with a government they will have more than what they would have had in the marketplace. The truth is that they wind up with less. For the government can only give you something by taking away something you want more.

Once its considered proper to use government force to solve one person's problem, force can be justified to solve anyone's problem.

Don't let uncertainty prevent you from enjoying what you have. But don't let overconfidence lead you to act upon what you don't have yet.

I've always found it hard to understand why so many people live so much for the future — especially when the present is such a lovely place.

A free man doesn't need groups, because he's in a position to take advantage of the numerous direct alternatives that require only his decision, not the changing of others.

Government doesn't work, and I want the federal government out of them. The answer always is smaller government. Government forces one choice on everyone. Freedom provides a hundred choices.

Once the door was open, once it was settled that the government should help some people at the expense of others, there was no stopping it. If the coercion of government can endow one person with property he hasn't earned, then everyone will want to use government to get something he wants. So it's not surprising that, over the past two centuries, more and more people have concluded that they deserve government's help.

Everything you want in life has a price connected to it. There's a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay just of leaving thing as they are, a price for everything.

A big philosophical breakthrough for me was the realization that my own freedom was not only possible, but far more important than the establishment of a free society.

In seeking your own freedom and happiness, you have to deal with those who tell you that you shouldn't put yourself first. That creates a situation in which you're pressured to act negatively — to put aside your plans and desires in order to avoid the condemnation of others.

An efficiently selfish person is sensitive to the needs and desires of others. But he doesn't consider those desires to be demands upon him. Rather, he sees them as opportunities — potential exchanges that might be beneficial to him.

People seek government action because they don't approve of what other people choose to do with their lives. They want to overrule the decisions others have made concerning the use of their own time and money.

A free person doesn't try to remake the world of his friends or his family. He merely appraises every situation by the simple standard: Is this what I want for myself? If it isn't, he looks elsewhere. If it is, he relaxes and enjoys it — without the problems most other people take for granted.

If you earn whatever you want, you know that it's yours. Then life is an adventure. The uncertainty of the future is a challenge, not a source of dread.