Market Quotes

“In the absence of a market, there is a failure of the price system to transmit the information that is needed to create incentives.”

“The price system is a mechanism for communicating information, and a very effective one at that.”

“The fundamental argument for the market is that it is a decentralized system for coordinating human activity.”

“Today we are raising more than we can consume. Today we are making more than we can use... Therefore we must find new markets for our produce, new occupation for our capital, new work for our labor.”

“It is a characteristic of all markets, whether of stocks or of soybeans, that they go to extremes.”

“But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions...”

“The market is not a zero-sum game. It's a positive-sum game. One person's gain is not another person's loss.”

“Irrational exuberance is the psychological basis of a speculative bubble.”

“If you're going to have a market economy, you have to have a government.”

“Remember, you can be right and still be out of business.”

“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”

“A bull market is like sex. It feels best just before it ends.”

“The great virtue of a free market is that it allows people to get what they want, not what some politician thinks they should want.”

“The stock market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism and unjustified pessimism.”

“When the time comes to buy, you won't want to. It's the nature of the beast.”

“The market is a good servant but a bad master.”

“Laws, in a market society, would be produced for profit.”

“Stock market bubbles don't grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.”

“There is no such thing as a 'free' market; it is a political construct.”

“A market economy is a tool—a magnificent tool, but a tool. It's not the end in itself.”