“The idea of a rational bureaucracy, of skill, merit, and consistency, is essential to all modern states.”

Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

Politics are, as it were, the market place and the price mechanism of all social demands – though there is no guarantee that a just price will be struck; and there is nothing spontaneous about politics- it depends on deliberate and continuous activity.

Certainly if the fundamental problem of society is that demands are infinite and resources are always limited, politics, not economics is the master science.

Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.

Free men stick their necks out.

Politics has rough manners, but it is a very useful thing.

If, of course, one builds into the concept of an ‘individual’ all that Professor Hayek does in his Road To Serfdom.

The unique character of political activity lies, quite literally, in its publicity.

What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.

One of the symptoms of a declining social order is that its members have to give most of their time to politics, rather than to the real tasks of economic production, in an attempt to patch up the cracks already appearing from the ‘inner contradictions’ of such a system.

The political process is not tied to any particular doctrine. Genuine political doctrines, rather, are the attempt to find particular and workable solutions to this perpetual and shifty problem of conciliation.

Factory workers are not working for capitalism, they are working for a living wage.

Totalitarian rule marks the sharpest contrast imaginable with political rule, and ideological thinking is an explicit and direct challenge to political thinking.

The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.

Democracy is perhaps the most promiscuous word in the world of public affairs.

The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.

Power thrills, consistency kills.

I have long admired Steinway pianos for their qualities of tone, clarity, pitch consistency, touch responsiveness, and superior craftsmanship.

Pressed caviar has the consistency of chilled tar.

Color is crucial in painting, but it is very hard to talk about.

Why God should want and need us is a mystery. But it is true: otherwise he would not have created us and life would ultimately have no meaning for us.

There is almost nothing you can say that holds up as a generalization, because it depends on too many factors: size, modulation, the rest of the field, a certain consistency that color has with forms, and the statement you’re trying to make.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

We define a true culture of quality as an environment in which employees not only follow quality guidelines but also consistently see others taking quality-focused actions, hear others talking about quality, and feel quality all around them.