Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement. It is by no means an obvious remedy for the obvious… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
The state itself becomes more and more identified with the interests of those who run things than with the interests of the… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
Nowhere has democracy ever worked well without a great measure of local self-government, providing a school of political training for the people… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
You can have economic freedom without political freedom, but you cannot have political freedom without economic freedom. — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
It is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the intellectual that he judges new ideas not by their specific merits but by… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
It is tempting to believe that social evils arise from the activities of evil men and that if only good men (like ourselves, naturally) wielded power, all would be well. That view requires only emotion and self-praise - easy to come by and satisfying as well. To understand why it is that 'good' men in positions of power will produce… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share
Socialist thought owes its appeal to the young largely to its visionary character; the very courage to indulge in Utopian thought is in this respect a source of strength for socialism which traditional liberalism sadly lacks. Speculation about general principles provides an opportunity for the play of the imagination of those who are unencumbered by much knowledge of the facts… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share
The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the "general principles which are always the same." In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share
The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
By the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
Freedom can be preserved only if it is treated as a supreme principle which must not be sacrificed for particular advantages. — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
Should our moral beliefs really prove to be dependent on factual assumptions shown to be incorrect, it would be hardly moral to defend them… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
It is true that the virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now--independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one's own conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one's neighbors--are essentially those on which the of an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and in so… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share
Unlike the rationalism of the French Revolution, true liberalism has no quarrel with religion, and I can only deplore the militant and essentially illiberal antireligionism which animated so much of nineteenth-century Continental liberalism. ... What distinguishes the liberal from the conservative here is that, however profound his own spiritual beliefs, he will never regard himself as entitled to impose them… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share
We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage… Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share
The central problem of management is how spontaneous interaction of people within a firm, each possessing only bits of knowledge, can bring about the… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
The discussions of every age are filled with the issues on which its leading schools of thought differ. But the general intellectual atmosphere of… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
The Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess. — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
[Socialistic] economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image
It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends… — Friedrich August von Hayek Copy Share Image