Friedrich August von Hayek Quotes

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• The idea of social justice is that the state should treat different people unequally in order to make them equal.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Order, Ideas, People

  200 Copy quote

• 'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  War, Historical, Liberty

  "Law, Legislation and Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Volume 3: "The Political Order of a Free People". Chapter 17: "A Model Constitution", 1973.

  152 Copy quote

• If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialist.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Politics, Economics, Socialist

  196 Copy quote

• 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 of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Freedom, Mean, Responsibility

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part I: "The Value of Freedom". Chapter 5: "Responsibility and Freedom", 1960.

  154 Copy quote

• There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Differences, People, Liberty

  "Individualism: True and False" by Friedrich Hayek, 1945.

  167 Copy quote

• [Socialistic] economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most power-hungry and unscrupulous.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Regulation, Way, Planning

  143 Copy quote

• What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Mean, Our Generation, People

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 7 : Economic Control and Totalitarianism, 1940 - 1943.

  185 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Design, Liberty

  "The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Chapter 5: "The Fatal Conceit", 1988.

  144 Copy quote

• 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

  Government, Deception, Management

  9 Copy quote

• In government, the scum rises to the top.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Government, Scum, Libertarian

  91 Copy quote

• The advantage of a free market is that it allows millions of decision-makers to respond individually to freely determined prices, allocating resources - labor, capital and human ingenuity - in a manner that can't be mimicked by a central plan, however brilliant the central planner.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Decision, Brilliant, Determined

  13 Copy quote

• Nothing is more securely lodged than the ignorance of the experts.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Ignorance, Experts

  14 Copy quote

• [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

  Giving Up, Taken, Surrender

  57 Copy quote

• Nobody with open eyes can any longer doubt that the danger to personal freedom comes chiefly from the left.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Eye, Doubt, Danger

  "Law, Legislation and Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 18 : The Containment of Power and the Dethronement of Politics, 1973.

  50 Copy quote

• The moral consequences of totalitarian propaganda...are destructive of all morals because they undermind one of the foundations of all morals: the sense of and respect for truth.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Foundation, Politics, Moral

  30 Copy quote

• While an equality of rights under a limited government is possible and an essential condition of individual freedom, a claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Government, Rights, Essentials

  21 Copy quote

• It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Men, Thinking, Tyrants

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part II: "Freedom and the Law". Chapter 9: "Coercion and the State", 1960.

  77 Copy quote

• Social justice rests on the hate towards those that enjoy a comfortable position, namely, upon envy.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Hate, Envy, Justice

  78 Copy quote

• The chief evil is unlimited government, and nobody is qualified to wield unlimited power.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Government, Evil, Unlimited

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Postscript: Why I Am Not a Conservative, 1960.

  70 Copy quote

• 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

  Beautiful, Mean, Order

  136 Copy quote

• 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

  Government, Issues, People

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Government, Giving, Democracy

  66 Copy quote

• 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.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Views, Majority

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Chap. 7 : Majority Rules, 1960.

  14 Copy quote

• It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program - on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off - than on any positive task.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Law, People, Envy

  31 Copy quote

• 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

  Equality, Law, People

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part I: "The Value of Freedom". Chapter 6: "Equality, Value and Merit", 1960.

  64 Copy quote

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