260 Quotes by Friedrich August von Hayek

It is when it is contended that "in a democracy right is what the majority makes it to be" that democracy degenerates into demagoguery.

A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy.

You can have economic freedom without political freedom, but you cannot have political freedom without economic freedom.

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

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

Once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by democratic assemblies.

It is tempting to believe that social evils arise from the activities of evil men and that if only good men (like ourselves, naturally) wielded power, all would be well. That view requires only emotion and self-praise - easy to come by and satisfying as well. To understand why it is that 'good' men in positions of power will produce evil, while the ordinary man without power but able to engage in voluntary cooperation with his neighbors will produce good, requires analysis and thought, subordinating emotions to the rational.

Freedom necessarily means that many things will be done which we do not like.

To rest the case for equal treatment of national or racial minorities on the assumption that they do not differ from other men is implicitly to admit that factual inequality would justify unequal treatment, and the proof that some differences do, in fact, exist would not be long in forthcoming. It is of the essence of the demand for equality before the law that people should be treated alike in spite of the fact that they are different.