All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEKI was quite depressed two weeks ago when I spent an afternoon at Brentano’s Bookshop in New York and was looking at the kind of books most people read. That seems to be hopeless; once you see that you lose all hope.
More Friedrich August von Hayek Quotes
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If the human intellect is allowed to impose a preconceived pattern on society, if our powers of reasoning are allowed to lay claim to a monopoly of creative effort… then we must not be surprised if society, as such, ceases to function as a creative force.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
We did not realise how fragile our civilisation was.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
Freedom necessarily means that many things will be done which we do not like.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
There may be few instances in which the superstition that only measurable magnitudes can be important has done positive harm in the economic field: but the present inflation and employment problems are a very serious one.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
Once politics become a tug-of-war for shares in the income pie, decent government is impossible.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
…the case for individual freedom rests largely on 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.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
Capitalism created the possibility of employment.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
Should our moral beliefs really prove to be dependent on factual assumptions shown to be incorrect, it would be hardly moral to defend them by refusing to acknowledge the facts.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement. It is by no means an obvious remedy for the obvious evil which the interests of that class will necessarily demand. It is a construction of theorists.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK -
Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK