Friedrich August von Hayek Quotes

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

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Politics, Economics, Socialist

  204 Copy quote

• 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

  209 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.

  163 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.

  160 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.

  173 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

  147 Copy quote

• In government, the scum rises to the top.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Government, Scum, Libertarian

  99 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

  19 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

  16 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.

  148 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.

  190 Copy quote

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

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Ignorance, Experts

  19 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.

  55 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

  63 Copy quote

• The idea that human kind can shape the world according to wish is what I call the fatal conceit

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Ideas, Wish, Shapes

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  Mean, Liberty, Principles

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 10 : Why The Worst Get On Top, 1940 - 1943.

  22 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

  84 Copy quote

• We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Stupid, Done, Foolish

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Front Cover Friedrich August Hayek, 1944.

  26 Copy quote

• I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Freedom, Justice, Mirages

  "New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part 2: "Politics". Chapter 8: "Economic Freedom and Representative Government", pp. 110-111, 1978.

  66 Copy quote

• Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Socialism, Illusion, Communism

  18 Copy quote

• When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Power, Democracy, Politics

  9 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.

  75 Copy quote

• That democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something so utterly different that few of those who wish it would be prepared to accept the consequences, many will not believe until the connection has been laid bare in all its aspects.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Believe, Democratic Socialism, Wish

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 2 : The Great Utopia, 1940 - 1943.

  68 Copy quote

• I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term "social justice.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Men, Justice, Would Be

  "Law, Legislation and Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 9 : 'Social' or Distributive Justice, 1973.

  14 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.

  67 Copy quote

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