Friedrich August von Hayek Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

• '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.

• A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Equality, Government, Liberty

  "Law, Legislation and Liberty" by Friedrich August von Hayek, Vol. 2 : The Mirage of Social Justice, (Ch. 9), 1976.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

• 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

  Wish, Liberty, Essentials

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by F.A. Hayek, Chap. 6: "Equality, Value and Merit," Routledge (p. 77), 1960.

• 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

  Freedom, Government, Our Generation

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, 1960.

• I use throughout the term 'liberal' in the original, nineteenth-century sense in which it is still current in Britain. In current American usage it often means very nearly the opposite of this. It has been part of the camouflage of leftish movements in this country, helped by muddleheadedness of many who really believe in liberty, that 'liberal' has come to mean the advocacy of almost every kind of government control.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Country, Believe, Mean

• 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

• I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Thinking, Government, Exaggeration Is

• Human envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as 'the most anti-social and evil of all passions.'

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Passion, Evil, Envy

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek (p. 93), 1960.

• 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

  Powerful, Organization, Liberty

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part I: "The Value of Freedom". Chapter 2: "The Creative Power of a Free Civilization", 1960.

• Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Opportunity, Liberty, Doing Good

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Chap. 5 : Responsibility and Freedom, 1960.

• Wherever liberty as we understand it has been destroyed, this has almost always been done in the name of some new freedom promised to the people

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Names, People, Liberty

• ...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

  Ignorance, Achievement, Liberty

• 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 Hayek

  Wisdom, Political, Ignorant

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part I: "The Value of Freedom". Chapter 2: "The Creative Power of a Free Civilization", 1960.

• 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

  Important, Liberty, Libertarian

• The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Faith, Thinking, Government

• 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

  Men, Justice, Liberty

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, p. 99, 1960.

• 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

  Society, Liberty, Would Be

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich August von Hayek, 1960.

• 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

  Powerful, Men, Liberty

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part III: "Freedom in the Welfare State". Chapter 17: "The Decline of Socialism and The Rise of the Welfare State", 1960.

• 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.

• The 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 "functionaire" possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose desecration it depends whether and how I am allowed to live or to work.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Liberty, May, Libertarian

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