Ludwig von Mises Quotes

It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.

There is something, however humble, which can properly be called skill among those who recognise themselves as economists.

Our biggest challenge is to eliminate the popular perception that economists don't have anything useful to say.

Too many people think that economics is this subject that should wait until the university level. But it can't wait that long.

Most academic economists know nothing of economy. In fact, they know little of anything.

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.

You read [Bill ] Maher's book, and he didn't take Econ 101. All his arguments about gasoline, it's not that they're right or wrong - they're just not informed.

The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book.

The density of settlement of economists over the whole empire of economic science is very uneven, with a few areas of modest size holding the bulk of the population.

It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

… the individuals who are at the top of the foreign policy hierarchy, both at State and at the National Security Council, tend to be less than sophisticated … about economic issues.

It turns out the businessman knows more about how the economy really works than the chattering class. What a shock.

The narrative related to economics is, I think, very well understood even by the common man.

Why does a public discussion of economic policy so often show the abysmal ignorance of the participants?

As the science of economics...exploded the fallacies of every brand of utopianism, it was outlawed and stigmatized as unscientific.

Any man who is only an economist is unlikely to be a good one.

Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from.

I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.

It is from the scope and wisdom of the economists of the past that we must reap the knowledge with which to face the future.

I am not an economist. I am an honest man!

The inscrutability [of economics] is perhaps not unintentional. It gives endless employment to dialecticians who otherwise might become public charges or, at very worst, swindlers and tricksters.

Thousands of important and intelligent men have never been able to grasp the principle of comparative advantage or believe it even after it was explained to them

Most Americans don't know enough about basic economics to fill out one fortune cookie.

The years of the Great Depression were a superb time for economists because people not knowing what could be done or what should be done would always assume that maybe an economist had the answer. If you were just a lawyer in Washington, you were nobody. But if you were an economist, you might have the answer.