No Such Thing As A Free Lunch Quotes & Sayings

The free lunch is the essence of modern liberalism. — Charles Krauthammer

When you listen to tax-cut rhetoric, remember that giving one class of taxpayer a break requires - now or down the line - that an equivalent burden be imposed on other parties. In other words, if I get a break, someone else pays. Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can however, determine who pays for lunch. — Warren Buffett

Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money, 'cause they're convinced that there is a free lunch. — Ron Bloom

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it. — Aldous Huxley

Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can, however, determine who pays for lunch. And last week the Senate handed the bill to the wrong party ... the poor and middle class. — Warren Buffett

Free lunches don't come cheap. — Charles Petzold

Researchers discovered that people who have just consumed caffeinated drinks were more likely to be swayed by arguments about various controversial topics.55 In short, good evidence that there really is no such thing as a free lunch or an innocent cup of coffee. — Richard Wiseman

The dead man's nephew, excused from this duty, walks far ahead out of earshot. We are free as we go stumbling and sweating along to say exactly what we please, without fear of offending. "Heavy son of a bitch. ... " "All blown up like he is, you'd think he'd float like a balloon." "Let's just hope he don't explode." "He won't. We let the gas out." "What about lunch?" somebody asks; "I'm hungry." "Eat this." "Why'd the bastard have to go so far from the road?" "There's something leaking out that zipper." "Never mind, let's try to get in step here," the sheriff says. "Goddamnit, Floyd, you got big feet." "Are we going in the right direction?" "I wonder if the old fart would walk part way if we let him out of that bag?" "He won't even say thank you for the ride." "Well I hope this learned him a lesson, goddamn him. I guess he'll stay put after this. ... " Thus we meditate upon the stranger's death. — Edward Abbey

In an ideal world for me, school lunch would be free for everybody. — Tom Colicchio

But Burnham also created an office culture that anticipated that of businesses that would not appear for another century. He installed a gym. During lunch hour employees played handball. Burnham gave fencing lessons. Root played impromptu recitals on a rented piano. "The office was full of a rush of work," Starrett said, "but the spirit of the place was delightfully free and easy and human in comparison with other offices I had worked in." Burnham — Erik Larson

Who constitutes the nation? Only the elite?Or do the hundreds of millions of poor in India also make up the nation? Are their interests never identified with national interest? Or is there more than one nation? That is the question you often run up against in some of India's poorest areas. Areas where extremely poor people go into destitution making way for firing ranges, jet fighter plants, coal mines, power projects, dams, sanctuaries, prawn and shrimp farms, even poultry farms. If the costs they bear are the 'price' of development, then the rest of the 'nation' is having one endless free lunch. — P.Sainath

The free lunch has still to be invented. — Alan Greenspan

I think there's a very strong Calvinistic bias against a free lunch. The idea that you could achieve a spiritual insight without suffering, soul-searching, flagellation, and that sort of thing, is abhorrent to people because they believe that the vision of these higher dimensions should be vouchsafed to the good, and probably to them only after death. It is alarming to people to think that they could take a substance like psilocybin or DMT and have these kinds of experiences. — Terence McKenna

Immigrants used to come to America seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government. Now they come looking for free health care, free education, and a free lunch. — Harry Browne

Fine. Be taciturn and muleheaded, if that's what you want to be. But you can be that way alone." She whirled and took one step toward Main Street. He caught her arm. "But we were gonna have lunch together. I've got bread and cheese for sandwiches and a whole peach pie I bought from a neighbor lady." Sadie loved peach pie. Her mouth watered, thinking about sinking her fork through flaky crust into sweet, moist peaches. But then she looked into Sid's stormy face. Her hunger disappeared in an instant. She pulled her arm free of his grasp. "Eat it by yourself. I have no desire to stay in your company when you won't talk or smile or act like the Sid I remember from Indiana. — Kim Vogel Sawyer

We have believed in any number of things - the tooth fairy, cold fusion, and benefits of smoking, the free lunch - that turn out not to exist. We all subscribe to preposterous beliefs; we just don't know yet which ones they are. — Stacy Schiff

What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far, far from it, but there is no free lunch, as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble. — Arthur Laffer

We must explain the truth: There is no free lunch. — Grace Napolitano

If you have never tried a plant-based diet, start. If you've never juiced vegetables, start. If you've never taken vitamin C to saturation, start. If you have never done a half-hour fitness workout each day, start. But, there is no such thing as a free lunch, a quick fix or a magic wand to cure illness. — Andrew Saul

DESPISE THE FREE LUNCH JUDGMENT What is offered for free is dangerous-it usually involves either a trick or a hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit. It is also often wise to pay the full price - there is no cutting corners with excellence. Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power. — Robert Greene

I've been pounding the table here for a year or so saying there's no free lunch, and there is going to be a day of reckoning for every company that thinks they are going to try and sell a free model. — Darl McBride

Thanks to his salary, an employee is free to eat whatever, wherever. However, because of his job, he is not free to eat whenever. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

You learn as you grow up, if you're intelligent - or even three-quarter witted - that there's no free lunch. You pay for things in various ways. Living, loving, everything else is a matter of the same principles: you learn to work with what you have. — Iris Apfel

I don't like to feel that I owe anything. I like to feel that I pay my own way, no free lunch. — B.B. King

God likes to have his free lunch and be it too. — Richard Dawkins

For millennia mankind has believed that nothing can come out of nothing. Today we can argue that everything has come out of nothing. Nobody has to pay for the universe. It is the ultimate free lunch. — Paul Davies

In the Solar System, Enceladus ought to be one of the highest priorities for the world's space agencies. Enceladus has a source of energy (tidal heating), organic material, and liquid water. That's a textbook-like list of those properties needed for life. Moreover, nature has provided astrobiologists with the ultimate free lunch: jets that spurt Enceladus's organic material into space. — David C. Catling

In the financial world it tends to be misleading to state, "There is no free lunch." Rather the more meaningful comment is, "Somebody has to pay for lunch." — Martin J. Whitman

Just enough to make up for all the fucking taxes the government took out of my regular paycheck. "Free" counseling. "Free" healthcare. "Free" employment services. "Free" food. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Keep that in mind. Somewhere, somehow, somebody is paying. For everything. — Ken Wheaton

As Barry Commoner, US biologist and 1980 presidential candidate, formulated it in his Four Laws of Ecology:
Everything is connected to everything else.
Everything must go somewhere.
Nature knows best.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. — Kennedy Warne

Oh, "Tanstaafl." Means "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." And isn't,' I added, pointing to a FREE LUNCH sign across room, 'or these drinks would cost half as much. Was reminding her that anything free costs twice as much in long run or turns out worthless. — Robert A. Heinlein

There's no such thing as a free lunch, unless you have a coupon for a free lunch ... or someone gives you a lunch ... never mind. — John Adams

It is said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch. — Stephen Hawking

This habit of free speaking at ladies' lunches has impaired society; it has doubtless led to many of the tragedies of divorce and marital unhappiness. Could society be deaf and dumb and Congress abolished for a season, what a happy and peaceful life one could lead! — M. E. W. Sherwood

Let's not play games, Mr. Cratchett," I replied. "I wanted to let you know that I'll be coming in for an appointment with Mr. Raisin on Tuesday morning at eleven o'clock. I shall need about an hour and would prefer it if we were not disturbed during that time. I hope that he will be free at that hour but just so you both know, if he is not, then I am perfectly willing to sit in your office until he is free. I shall bring a book with me to pass the time. I shall bring two, if need be. I shall bring the complete works of Shakespeare if he insists on keeping me waiting interminably and those plays will get me through the long hours. But I will not leave until I have seen him, are we quite clear on that? Now, I wish you a very pleasant Sunday, Mr. Cratchett. Enjoy your lunch, won't you? Your breath smells of whisky. — John Boyne

Some say that "there is no such thing as free lunch". And, I ask, why not?
The joy of giving without expecting anything in return from a particular source is simply magic. — Ana Ortega

To know oneself is the first step toward making flow a part of one's entire life. But just as there is no free lunch in the material economy, nothing comes free in the psychic one. If one is not willing to invest psychic energy in the internal reality of consciousness, and instead squanders it in chasing external rewards, one loses mastery of one's life, and ends up becoming a puppet of circumstances. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

There's no such thing as a free lunch, at least on the karmic level. — Joan D. Vinge

Once the true relationship between inflation and unemployment is understood, with luck and skill, a free lunch is possible. — Paul Ormerod

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause. Hope is what led me here today
with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be. [January 3, 2008] — Barack Obama

The small businessman is smart; he realizes there's no free lunch. On the other hand, he knows where to go to get a good inexpensive sandwich. — Adam Osborne

The recent developments in cosmology strongly suggest that the universe may be the ultimate free lunch. — Alan Guth

It is important to recognize that behind the razzmatazz of consumerism, we all remain dependent on basic natural resources - land, air, water and biodiversity - for every product and service. There can be no free lunch on the environment. — Klaus Topfer

Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites. — William Ruckelshaus

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. — Pierre Dos Utt

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don't even know I'm working on. It's a free lunch. A free dinner. I don't know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing. — Charles Bukowski

There is no free lunch, so if you're playing with the big train set - on big movies - it's a lot of money they're entrusting you with, and you have to get that money back for them. I don't take that responsibility lightly. — Jon Favreau

Tweeds, he soon found, are not in warm weather the ideal clothes for mountain climbing, for that was what his progress soon became. The track grew almost precipitous and he was still further hindered by the loose surface and his package of food and wine. He had been climbing for half an hour when he stopped, ate his lunch, drank his wine and smoked a pipe. Some forty minutes later, much refreshed and free of encumbrance, he continued the ascent in better style. — Eric Ambler

Lunches don't get free just because you don't see the prices on the menu. And economists don't get popular by reminding people of that. — Thomas Sowell

There's no such thing as a free lunch. — Milton Friedman

Increasing numbers of Americans are subscribing to the myth that you can get something for nothing - as long as the government is footing the bill. In fact, they believe it is the duty of government to take care of them, from the womb to the tomb. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything we get from the government, we pay for in debilitating taxes. Everything the government gives to the people, it must first take from the people. This is something few Americans appear to understand. — Ezra Taft Benson

Every morning I look in the mirror and remind myself: "No one owes you sh*t!" In this way, I am never disappointed. Never placing blame. — Brandi L. Bates

You can always judge a man by what he eats, and therefore a country in which there is no free lunch is no longer a free country. — Arthur Baer

Masters, holding aloft a hard-boiled egg from the free lunch as if it were a crystal ball, said, "Have you gentlemen ever considered the question of the true nature of the University? Mr. Stoner? Mr. Finch?" Smiling, they shook their heads. "I'll bet you haven't. Stoner, here, I imagine, sees it as a great repository, like a library or a whorehouse, where men come of their free will and select that which will complete them, where all work together like little bees in a common hive. The True, the Good, the Beautiful. They're just around the corner, in the next corridor; they're in the next book, the one you haven't read, or in the next stack, the one you haven't got to. But you'll get to it someday. And when you do - when you do - " He looked at the egg for a moment more, then took a large bite of it and turned to Stoner, his jaws working and his dark eyes bright. — John Edward Williams