“I have no right to coerce someone else, because I cannot be sure that I'm right and he is wrong.”

—  Milton Friedman

"Say 'No' to Intolerance", Liberty magazine, vol. 4, no. 6, (July 1991) pp. 17-20.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I have no right to coerce someone else, because I cannot be sure that I'm right and he is wrong." by Milton Friedman?
Milton Friedman photo
Milton Friedman158
American economist, statistician, and writer 1912–2006

Related quotes

Brian Andreas photo

“I'm not sure if there's one right place I'm supposed to be, he said, but I know a couple of wrong places I'd give a second try in a heartbeat.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Crime and Punishment

Source: Crime and Punishment (Zločin a trest)

“They done
Wrong
Like ink from a busted pen
Thrown away 'cause of someone else
Used up
But he come back
Dressed in night
Fine as a king
With his queen
The wrong
Made right
So right.”

Kristin Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

Jodi Picoult photo

“Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Samuel Johnson photo

“I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right.”

Samuel Johnson book The Plays of William Shakespeare

The Plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. I (1765), Preface

Michael Faraday photo

“A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

Andy Warhol photo

“I like to be the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place. Being the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place is worth it because something interesting always happens.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Molière photo

“It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I'm right.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor

Terry Pratchett photo

“I'VE NEVER BEEN VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT, said Bill Door. I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

Abraham Cowley photo

“His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.”

Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) British writer

On the Death of Crashaw; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, He can't be wrong whose life is in the right", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, epilogue iii, line 303.

Related topics