28. "You can fool some of the people all of the time, all the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln ??

28. "An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.. . . The People cannot be safe without information. When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe." Thomas Jefferson
>> EDITOR NOTE > > this quote forms one of the motivations for creating this Grandfather Economic Report series - - to help assure there are more informed citizens.

CONTEMPORARY QUOTES

My favorite contemporary quotes >

a. "The farther backward you look, the farther forward you can see." - Winston Churchill - (NOTE: the wisdom of this quote is reflected in that each chapter of The Grandfather Economic Report series displays data history in long-term picture-graphic form to help tell each story, with integrity).

b. "Old age ain't no place for sissies." - Bette Davis - academy award winning actress - (NOTE: being of grandfather age I can attest to the quality of this quote).

Now to some other great quotes >

1. "There doubtless are many causes for the loss of freedom, but surely a major cause has been the growth of government and its increasing control of our lives. Today, government, directly or indirectly, controls the spending of as much as half our national income." - Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in Economics - 1998 (see Graphics)
2. "Modern civilization is a product of the philosophy of laissez faire (non-interference). It cannot be preserved under the ideology of government omnipotence (all-powerful)." Ludwig Von Mises, 'Human Action' xxxiv - 1949 - World renowned economist and social philosopher - 1831-1973
3. "Trust but verify" - Ronald Reagan, U.S. President, 1980-88 - - speaking about foreign leaders.
4. "We hear sad complaints sometimes of merciless creditors; whilst the acts of merciless debtors are passed over in silence." - William Frend, 1817
5. "If decade after decade the truth cannot be told, each person's mind begins to roam irretrievably." Alexander Solzhenitsyn - Nobel laureate Literature 1970
6. "Capitalism will always have dramas. It is governments that turn them into crisis." - William Emmott, editor The Economist, 11 Sept. 1999
7. "Behind all the complexities of modern political economy lies the simple fact that human beings are, speaking generally, of two persuasions: the first would spend tomorrow what they earn today; the second would spend today what they hope to earn tomorrow. From this rudimentary biological fact arise all conflicts that lead to economic crises: to panics, depressions, violent and revolutionary transfers of wealth, and perhaps most wars." Freeman Tilden, 'A World in Debt' - 1935
8. "The only secret is the history you don't know." - Harry S. Truman, former president.
9. "The only proper purpose of government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of government are: to protect you from criminals; the military, to protect you from foreign invaders; and, the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law." - 'Atlas Shrugged', by renowned philosopher Ayn Rand, 1957.
10. "There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." Lord John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), renowned British economist.
11. "The American future is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Government becomes the parent, as “it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” - 'Alexis de Tocqueville, 'Democracy in America,' Vol. 2, Part 4, Chap. 6 (1840).
12. "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit (debt creation)." - by Allan Greenspan (#8) in The Objectivist newsletter published in 1966, reprinted in Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. (See Inflation Report)
13. "The decline of great powers is caused by simple economic over extension." -  Paul Kennedy 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers - economic change and military conflicts 1500-2000' - (See International Debt & Trade Report)
14. "Government is best that governs least." - Henry Thoreau, in 'Civil Disobedience' -'people should not permit governments to overrule'
15. "Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens against crimes against themselves or their property. When government -- in pursuit of good intentions -- tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of innovation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player. It is my view that what is important is cutting government spending, however spending is financed. A so-called deficit is a disguised and hidden form of taxation. The real burden on the public is what government spends (and mandates others to spend). As I have said repeatedly, I would rather have government spend one trillion dollars with a deficit of a half a trillion than have government spend two trillion dollars with no deficit." - Milton Friedman, Noble laureate.
16. "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done! And I am Caesar." 100 BC to 44 BC.
17. "The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than his intelligence."  - Oscar Wilde 1854-1900
18. "Stay on the balls of your feet and keep your eyes on the belt buckle." - good advice, whether playing basketball, listening to ravings of politicians or other salesmen, assessing financial markets, or dealing with family challenges. Author unknown
19. "It [is] a common defect of men in fair weather to take no thought of storms."  - Machiavelli 1469-1527
20. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead - other Meade quotes 1901-1978
21. "Those who do not take an interest in public affairs are doomed to be ruled by evil men" -  PLATO - 300 B.C.
22. "The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. Both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists." - Ernest Hemingway - 1899-1961 - Nobel laureate Literature 1954
23. "There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit (debt) expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit (debt) expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved." - Ludwig von Mises, in Human Action, Regnery, 1966, p. 572.
24. "The consequences of inflation are malinvestment, waste, a wanton redistribution of wealth and income, the growth of speculation and gambling, immorality and corruption, disillusionment, social resentment, discontent, upheaval and riots, bankruptcy, increased governmental controls, and eventual collapse." Henry Hazlitt 1894-1993
25. "Free trade is economically efficient. Yet national independence is even more fundamental. [If] we have got to live in a mercantilist, nationalist, bellicose world dominated by a few great empires, on the one hand, and if the domestic policy of this country is to remain free to shape its own destiny, on the other hand, I do not see the possibility, and I should very much doubt the wisdom, of any major deviation from the policy of protection.”  -  Joseph Schumpeter, economist and political scientist
26. "All truth passes through 3 phases: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed, and Third, it is accepted as self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860 - 19th century philosopher
27. “By adopting programs to redistribute substantial amounts of income, a nation guarantees that its government will become more powerful and invasive in other ways.”  - Robert Higgs
28. "We may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - - the apathy of human beings." - Hellen Keller 1880-1968 - famous deaf/blind author
29. "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality." - Ayn Rand, 20th century philosopher
30. "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill 1806-1873 - philosopher & political economist
31. "Government interventions always breed economic dislocations that "necessitate" more government interventions."   Ludwig von Mises
32. "There are always those in government who are anxious to increase its power and authority over the people. Strict adherence to personal privacy annoys those who promote a centralized state."   - Texas Congressman Ron Paul, January 2005
33. "To the extent that there is a central bank governing the amount of money in the system, that is not a free market," said former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in September 2007 on T-V to Jon Stewart
34. "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. A type of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."   - Albert Einstein 1879-1955 - Nobel laureate Physics 1921
35. "Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks." - Warren Buffett, the world's 2nd richest man in 2005.
36. A scary quote - - something of which to be most watchful > "It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."  - Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945.
37. "Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences." - Robert Louis Stevensen, novelist 1850-1894
38. "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."  - Warren Buffett, world's 2nd richest man.
39. "Thinking is the hardest work there is which is probably why so few people engage in it.” - Henry Ford 1863-1947 - founder of the Ford automotive company and the means of mass production. 
40. “Every lunatic thinks all other men are crazy.”  and "In heated arguments we are apt to lose sight of  the truth." and, "Better to be ignorant of a matter than half know it." - Publilius Syrus, Latin writer 50 B.C. - his other famous quotes
41. “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” - George Orwell 1903-1950 author and journalist
42. "Great Powers in relative decline instinctively respond by spending more on ‘security,’ and thereby divert potential resources from ‘investment’ and compound their long-term dilemma." - Historian Paul Kennedy describing “imperial overstretch” in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers 1989
43. "Speculation, where everyone could earn money without work, was the pipe dream … this led to growth of special interests that did not coincide with the interests of the nation as a whole. We cannot allow economic life to be controlled by a small group of men … tinctured by the fact that they can make huge profits, not from production, but from lending money and marketing securities … we cannot tolerate this opportunistic, selfish attitude …"  - Franklin Roosevelt memo to trade commissioner Landis Nov. 1933
44. "Ponzi’ finance units must increase its outstanding debt in order to meet its financial obligations.” - Hyman Minsky, economist, characteristics of financial crises
45. “Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
46. "The security of the dollar involves the security of us all... We are determined to do whatever must be done in the interest of this country and, indeed, in the interest of all to protect the dollar as a convertible currency at its current fixed rate.We are determined to maintain the firm relationship of gold and the dollar at the present price of $35 an ounce, and I can assure you will do just that." - speech 30 Sept. 1963 by President Kennedy to the IMF. (the Dollar Foreign Exchange Report shows what happened to the dollar in the following years, as JFK's commitment was ignored.)
47. “When economic prospects are at their brightest, the dangers of complacency and recklessness are greatest. As our prosperity proceeds on its record-breaking path, it behooves every one of us to scan the horizon of our national and international economy for danger signals so as to be ready for any storm.” Taking away the 'punch bowl.' - Bill Martin - former Federal Reserve Bank chairman - 1965 at Columbia U.
48. "Men go mad in herds but only come to their senses one by one." - Charles Mackay, the 19th-century Scottish journalist
49. "IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting - - Rudyard kipling
50. "When I was fourteen I  thought my father was a complete idiot but by the time I turned 21 I was amazed by how much the old man had learned." - Mark Twain 1835-1910 American writer
51. "I am not young enough to know everything."  - Oscar Wilde
52. The boiling frog story states that "a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough — it is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out." The story is generally told in a figurative context, with the upshot being that people should make themselves aware of gradual change lest they suffer a catastrophic loss - - such as ever increasing personal debt, ever increasing government size, sinking in quick sand, etc.

1. And - - we end with a repeat of this author's favorites >
           a. "The farther backward you look, the farther forward you can see." - Winston Churchill - (NOTE: the wisdom of this     quote is reflected in that each chapter of The Grandfather Economic Report series displays data history in long-term picture-graphic form to help tell each story).
            b. "Old age ain't no place for sissies." - Bette Davis - academy award winning actress - (NOTE: being of grandfather age I can attest to the quality of this quote).

Perhaps these quotes may add deeper perspective to our thoughts
{ Consider proposing addition of your own favorite quotes - by e-mail }

RETURN To HOME PAGE & INDEX of the Grandfather Economic Report of dramatic pictures reviewing economic threats facing young families and their children, compared to the past. (this is a listing by subject of each mini-report in the Grandfather Economic Report series).

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