Over the course of his 30 year career of speeches, investment newsletters and best-selling books, Mark Skousen has produced a wide variety of inspirational, wise, provocative and fascinating quotes on all sorts of topics: economics, Wall Street, politics, society, life, religion, family and much more. You can see his complete collection, including those from other famous investors, businesspeople, and philosophers in Maxims of Wall Street: A Compilation of Financial Adages, Ancient Proverbs and Worldly Wisdom.
Here are some of his most famous quotes:
- “Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure.” (from Persuasion versus Force pamphlet)
- “We shall never change our political leaders until we change the people who elect them.” (from Persuasion versus Force pamphlet)
- “Bad government drives out good business.” (a play on Gresham’s Law, “Bad money drives out good.”)
- “My generation made a mess of things, now it’s your turn.” (Mark Skousen to his children, 2010)
- “Nothing is more dangerous to an economy than to make a valuable service or product free to the public.”
- “If you are given the right to choose, most will choose the right.”
- “You’re awfully pretty, but your cooking is pretty awful.”
- “It’s not a question whether a religion is true or not, but whether it’s any good or not.”
- “Politics is the art of doing something that you can’t do anything about.”
- “Money may build you a house, but not a home.”
- “If you’ve traveled the world, you can never stay home for long.”
- “It is natural for all private enterprises to expand their services, for all public enterprises to reduce theirs.”
- “You can judge a man by the books in his library.”
- “No single snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche.”
- “In a large and mobile society, one is struck by the fact that you can always be replaced by a joker and no one will notice the difference.”
- “The worst thing that can happen to a new investor is to make money on his first trade. He thinks it’s easy.”
- “Leverage is like shooting an arrow into the sky. Eventually it comes down to earth.”
- “To err is human, but to be paid for it is divine.”
- “When you are rich, you can afford to be honest.”
- “History repeats itself, but never in the same way.”
- “Wall Street exaggerates everything.”
- “The business of investing is not the same as investing in a business.”
- “Never let a profit turn into a loss.”
