Friedrich Hayek

The case for individual freedom rests largely upon the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievements of our ends and welfare depend.

The chief evil is unlimited government…nobody is qualified to wield unlimited power.

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.

Liberty is not merely one particular value…it is the source and condition of most moral values. What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.

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.

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

How great, my friends, is the virtue of living upon a little!

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.

When one has tasted it Watermelon he knows what the angels eat.

Private men, in fine, are so much their own, that, paying common dues, they are sovereigns of all the rest. Yet the public must and will be served; and they that do it well, deserve public marks of honour and respect. To do so, men must have public minds, as well as salaries; or they will serve private ends at the public cost. Government can never be well administered, but where those intrusted make conscience of well discharging their places.

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.

What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?

Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding.

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.