Friedrich Hayek Quotes

When Dr. [Samuel] Johnson called patriotism the last refuge of a scoundrel, he forgot the possibilities contained in the word Reform.

History moves fast. It's hard to believe that gay Americans achieved full constitutional personhood just five years after corporations did!

I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible.

When I went off to college, I went believing I was a Republican. And actually I was president of Young Republicans for a couple of months and then I decided that I was much more in the camp of people like, you know, President Johnson - trying to promote civil rights, voting rights, ending poverty.

Conservatism is not a doctrine of contentment. Not a doctrine for the satisfied and the smug. It's a politics that's at war with the world.

Socialism is young and has made errors. Many times revolutionaries lack the knowledge and intellectual courage needed to meet the task of developing the new man with methods different from the conventional ones - and the conventional methods suffer from the influences of the society, which created them.

Liberalism, socialism, whatever, it is such a corrupting, destructive thing. And I believe it's the most destructive force in the world today, outside of, militarized weaponry and that kind of thing.

We cannot let the right wing roll back more than thirty years of social progress.

Conservatism defends those coercive arrangements which a still-lingering savageness makes requisite. Radicalism endeavours to realize a state more in harmony with the character of the ideal man.

I truly believe that one day we will get there, we will arrive. And if we do it right in America, maybe, just maybe, we can serve as a model for the rest of the world.

I actually do not think that's how what's happening to our government is going to be stopped. I think people who are willing to be civically engaged and believe in the promises and the progress of the last fifty years that will save this country.

Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community...

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men of our time.

You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors.

Politics is an obsolete way of doing things. Although it was good a hundred years ago, it has no place in today's high tech society.

My father's politics were old-fashioned in the sense that he used to say, all the time, "You've got to fight the system!" But my spiritual beliefs have led me to believe that the fight is the problem.

The only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the society’s values, can force it to change.

Those who professed themselves unable to believe in the reality of human progress ought to cheer themselves up, as the students under examination had conceivably been cheered up, by a short study of the Middle Ages. The hydrogen bomb, the South African Government, Chioang Kaidick, Senator McCarthy himself, would then seem a light price to pay for no longer being in the Middle Ages.

Nerdighters make me believe in America again.

We have to realize our black heritage in order to give us strength to move on and progress. But as far as returning to the old African culture, it's unnecessary and it's not advantageous in many respects. We believe that culture itself will not liberate us. We're going to need some stronger stuff.

I did a lot of reading. I read about democratic socialism. And I read about the efforts of people for such a long time trying to create a society in which all people can live with dignity. And that's kind of what I believe.

I believe that it isn't victories but defeats that promote nationalism.

The tone and tendency of liberalism...is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of reform and to make war on the manners and customs of the people under the pretext of progress.

I was influenced by the political environment of our country that has just gained freedom from British colonialism. And the seminal figures in that environment were Mahatma Gandhi, who had been assassinated shortly after I was born, but nevertheless dominated the collective psyche of the country. And of course there were other statesmen who were very much part of the culture we knew as well as looked upon by society as leaders, and mentors, and people that inspires us to have a vision for idealism.

I believe in permanent revolution.