Charles Koch Quotes - Page 3

I believe that cronyism is nothing more than welfare for the rich and powerful, and should be abolished.

A lot of the Republican rhetoric better than the Democrats'. But when they're in office, it's pretty much the same thing. It's serving their supporters, it's corporate welfare, it's cronyism which is so destructive, particularly to the disadvantaged.

Repeatedly asking for government help undermines the foundations of society by destroying initiative and responsibility. It is also a fatal blow to efficiency and corrupts the political process.

Economy is so riddled with corporate welfare and anti-competitive regulations, anti-innovation regulations. Regulations that are destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged, which is creating this two-tiered system we're headed for which has which is destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged and creating welfare for the wealthy.

The poorest Americans use three time the energy as the percentage of their income as the average American does. This is going to disproportionately hurt the poor. It may make the whole electric grid unstable, depending on how it is enforced. And it does nothing for the climate.

I learned that unless you start working, if you're frozen out of work, you will never learn the habits, the discipline, the values of cooperation and improvement unless you get a job, and that's what statistic show. It's, unless you get a job and keep it, you will not get out of poverty. If you do, you have a very good chance of working out of poverty.

Years later, when I asked my father, I said 'Pop, why were you so much harder on me than my younger brothers?' he said, son, you plum wore me out.

When you start attacking cronyism and peoples political interests, it gets nasty.

The old idea that some genius pulls all of this stuff out of the air is ridiculous. As Ridley pointed out, the only way Edison could invent the lightbulb is because all the elements had been developed before. That's obvious it wasn't just his genius - 20 others developed it at the same time. And that's true for almost every invention and discovery.

Anytime students shout down a speaker who says something different, this is not good.

Our vision controls the way we think and, therefore, the way we act the vision we have of our jobs determines what we do and the opportunities we see or don't see.

We try to evaluate how much value an employee is creating here and reward them accordingly.

That's the first rule for anybody who controls - do no harm.

The government is largely influenced by people who advocate corporate welfare and advocate these policies that create this two-tiered society...

My father wanted to instill the work ethic. And, because he knew if you don't learn to work to be more productive to improve your efficiency, to cooperate with other people at an early age, you may never learn those habits.

I think our biggest problem in society is we're headed more and more toward a two-tiered society. That is, creating welfare for the wealthy and destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged.

You can pay certain people more money and stuff but that's just going to be a transfer from one group to another. The only way people's wages are going to rise overall, or average median income is going to rise, is if you increase productivity.

I don't like the idea of capitalism anyway. Because it's not capital we are talking about; it's knowledge and creating well-being. Because I mean, that gets people on the wrong track when it's capital and how we allocate capital - no. How do we create the Republic of Science in America? How do we have a system of mutual benefits where people succeed by helping others improve their lives? So I don't like that at all.

I try to build on our management philosophy. I try to understand what the threats and opportunities are for us. Uh, I try to make sure that we're driving innovation and creative destruction hard enough so we're not blindsided, and that our attitude is to, in starting any initiative, any business, is to focus on how we can create value for others, rather than how we maximize profit, because you can make money focusing on, "How do I maximize profit?"

If somebody is doing more and more to make other people's lives better, have them make all they can, if that's what drives them, because that's what we want.

My parents worked really hard at communicating other values they felt were important, such as integrity, courage, humility, treating others with dignity and respect, and having a thirst for knowledge.

I studied what principles under-laid peace and prosperity and concluded the only way to achieve societal well-being was through a system of economic freedom.

The role of business is to provide products and services that make peoples lives better - while using fewer resources - and to act lawfully and with integrity.

Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers. This growing partnership between business and government is a destructive force, undermining not just our economy and our political system, but the very foundations of culture.

The essence of a university is free and open inquiry, and when it loses that it is no longer a university.