FA

F. A. Hayek

14quotes

Quotes by F. A. Hayek

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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.
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But I do love directing. I'm picky with it. I'm writing something now that God knows how long it is going to take me to finish, and God knows if it's going to be good enough for me to direct. But I'm trying, because in order to direct I am going into writing. So let's see how this experiment turns out.
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I'm sorry, but I need to be laying down. I feel terrible.
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The choice open to us is not between a system in which everybody will get what he deserves according to some absolute and universal standard of right, and one where the individual shares are determined partly by accident or good will or chance, but b
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This is not love. It is a crime, ... You can't look the other way just because you have not experienced domestic violence with your own flesh.
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Colin was wonderful. I went into this project worried about his reputation. I didn't know if he was good enough for the part, I didn't know if he was going to be a flake, know his lines, be there on time or take his work seriously. So I had my reservations - and I was wrong.
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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.
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Yet, as I am anxious to repeat, we will still achieve predictions which can be falsified and which therefore are of empirical significance.
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Who can seriously doubt that the power which a millionaire, who may be my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest bureaucrat possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends how I am allowed to live and work?
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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.
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