Friedrich Hayek

The individualist…recognizes the limitations of the powers of individual reason and consequently advocates freedom.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences…Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary…it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary.

Once wide coercive powers are given to government agencies…such powers cannot be effectively controlled.

Equality of the general rules of law and conduct…is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying liberty.

A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

The measure of a great leader, is their success in bringing everyone around to their opinion twenty years later.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.