Ludwig von Mises - Collected Quotes

"Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and the theories." (Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis", 1922)

"Figures alone prove or disprove nothing. Only the conclusions drawn from the collected material can do this. And these are theoretical." (Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis", 1922)

"Scientific criticism has no nobler task than to shatter false beliefs." (Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis", 1922)

"Human reasoning does not have the power to exhaust completely the content of the universe." (Ludwig Von Mises, "Epistemological Problems of Economics", 1933)

"One has to recognize that science is not metaphysics, and certainly not mysticism; it can never bring us the illumination and the satisfaction experienced by one enraptured in ecstasy. Science is sobriety and clarity of conception, not intoxicated vision." (Ludwig Von Mises, "Epistemological Problems of Economics", 1933)

"Historical knowledge is indispensable for those who want to build a better world." (Ludwig von Mises, "Omnipotent Government", 1944)

"Science is competent to establish what is. It can never dictate what ought to be." (Ludwig von Mises, "Planned Chaos", 1947)

"Changes in human conditions are brought about by the pioneering of the cleverest and most energetic men. They take the lead and the rest of mankind follows them little by little." Ludwig von Mises, "The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality", 1956)

"The mark of the creative mind is that it defies a part of what it has learned." (Ludwig von Mises, "Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution", 1957)

"Even knowledge of the laws of nature does not make action free. It is never able to attain more than definite, limited ends. It can never go beyond the insurmountable barriers set for it. And even within the sphere allowed to it, it must always reckon with the inroads of uncontrollable forces, with fate." (Ludwig von Mises, "Epistemological Problems of Economics", 1960)

"Scientific research sooner or later, but inevitably, encounters something ultimately given that it cannot trace back to something else of which it would appear as the regular or necessary derivative. Scientific progress consists in pushing further back this ultimately given." (Ludwig von Mises, "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method", 1962)

"Statistics is the description in numerical terms of experiences concerning phenomena not subject to regular uniformity. […] Statistic is therefore a specific method of history." (Ludwig von Mises, "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method", 1962)

"The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it." (Ludwig von Mises, "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method", 1962)

"The methods of the natural sciences cannot be applied to human behavior because this behavior lacks the peculiarity that characterizes events in the field of the natural sciences, viz., regularity." (Ludwig von Mises, "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method", 1962)

"There always remains an orbit that to the limited knowledge of man appears as an orbit of pure chance and marks life as a gamble. Man and his works are always exposed to the impact of unforeseen and uncontrollable events." (Ludwig von Mises, "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method", 1962)

"There is in the universe something for the description and analysis of which the natural sciences cannot contribute anything. There are events beyond the range of those events that the procedures of the natural sciences are fit to observe and describe. There is human action." (Ludwig von Mises, "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method" 1962)

"History speaks only to those people who know how to interpret it." (Ludwig von Mises, "Human Action", 1963)

"Man can never become omniscient. He can never be absolutely certain that his inquiries were not misled and that what he considers as certain truth is not error. All that man can do is to submit all his theories again and again to the most critical reexamination." (Ludwig von Mises, "Human Action", 1963)

"Statistics is a method for the presentation of historical facts concerning prices and other relevant data of human action. It is not economics and cannot produce economic theorems and theories. The statistics of prices is economic history." (Ludwig von Mises, "Human Action", 1963)

"Every branch of knowledge has its own merits and its own rights. Economists have never tried to belittle or deny the significance of economic history. Neither do real historians object to the study of economics." (Ludwig von Mises)