Friedrich August von Hayek, (1899-1992), Nobel Laureate of Economic Sciences 1974 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-30] of 52 Friedrich August von Hayek quotesFriedrich August von Hayek QuotesFriedrich August von Hayek Next 30 quotes 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.~ Friedrich August von Hayek By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.~ Friedrich August von Hayek From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.~ Friedrich August von Hayek Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?~ Friedrich August von Hayek It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody's permission or to obey anybody's orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today.~ Friedrich August von Hayek The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.~ Friedrich August von Hayek The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule.~ 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 When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself.~ 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 argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.~ Friedrich August von Hayek The greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regard as the public good.~ Friedrich August von Hayek It is largely because civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone.~ Friedrich August von Hayek To combat depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection -- a procedure which can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end.~ Friedrich August von Hayek Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.~ Friedrich August von Hayek [T]he power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest fonctionaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am to be allowed to live or to work? And who will deny that a world in which the wealthy are powerful is still a better world than one in which only the already powerful can acquire wealth?~ Friedrich August von Hayek What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.~ 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 Capitalism is not only a better form of organizing human activity than any deliberate design, any attempt to organize it to satisfy particular preferences, to aim at what people regard as beautiful or pleasant order, but it is also the indispensable condition for just keeping that population alive which exists already in the world. I regard the preservation of what is known as the capitalist system, of the system of free markets and the private ownership of the means of production, as an essential condition of the very survival of mankind.~ Friedrich August von Hayek From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.~ Friedrich August von Hayek Many of the greatest things man has achieved are not the result of consciously directed thought, and still less the product of a deliberately coordinated effort of many individuals, but of a process in which the individual plays a part which he can never fully understand.~ Friedrich August von Hayek To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything.~ Friedrich August von Hayek Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has been wrong.~ 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 Many who think themselves infinitely superior to the aberrations of Nazism, and sincerely hate all manifestations, work at the same time for ideals whose realization would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny.~ Friedrich August von Hayek Ever since the beginning of modern science, the best minds have recognized that "the range of acknowledged ignorance will grow with the advance of science." Unfortunately, the popular effect of this scientific advance has been a belief, seemingly shared by many scientists, that the range of our ignorance is steadily diminishing and that we can therefore aim at more comprehensive and deliberate control of all human activities. It is for this reason that those intoxicated by the advance of knowledge so often become the enemies of freedom.~ Friedrich August von Hayek It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress. In the process by which opinion is formed, it is very probable that, by the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point which the majority have reached. It is because we do not yet know which of the many competing new opinions will prove itself the best that we wait until it has gained sufficient support.~ Friedrich August von Hayek ...if we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.~ Friedrich August von Hayek The history of government management of money has, except for a few short happy periods, been one of incessant fraud and deception.~ Friedrich August von Hayek [T]hose who are willing to surrender their freedom for security have always demanded that if they give up their full freedom it should also be taken from those not prepared to do so.~ Friedrich August von Hayek Next 30 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print