Friedrich Hayek Quotes

A just society is one in which liberty for one person is constrained only by the demands created by equal liberty for another.

Here everyone is his own master. Civil liberty places all inhabitants on an equal footing. The humble cannot be oppressed by the mighty, nor the poor by the rich.

The basic natural right that a just society of government should try to secure - and aid or abet -- for every individual is not, and cannot be, the right to happiness, but is rather the right to its pursuit.

In the matter of social security one thing stands out clearly in my mind. Such things are necessary in order that the weak shall not go to the wall, that the strong may be supported, that all may have justice. But we must never so blanket ourselves that those fine national qualities of which I have spoken shall no longer have play. I know so well that fear, want and idleness can kill the spirit of any people. But I know, too, that security can be bought at too great a cost—the cost of spiritual freedom. How, then, may we strike a balance? That, it seems to me, is the big question for us to decide today

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained.

Individual freedom and individual equality cannot co-exist…. no one since Thomas Jefferson ... has really believed it.

All restraints upon man's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.

Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience.

The best investment the state can make is liberty and the rule of law—and respect for man’s dignity.

The only natural society is a society of liberty and equality.

Liberty dies in the hearts of men and women: when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.

I believe in civil rights. Every man is born equal and should be treated as human.

I would simply not compromise on the fundamental rights of people.

Not all citizens can be equally strong; but they can all be equally free.

The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.

One of the greatest disasters that happened to modern civilization was for democracy to inscribe "liberty" on its banners instead of "justice." Because "liberty" was considered the ideal it was not long until some men interpreted it as meaning "freedom from justice"; then when religion and decent government attempted to bring them back to justice, organized into "freedom groups" they protested that their constitutional and natural rights were being violated.

I can be free only to the extent that others are forbidden to profit from their physical, economic, or other superiority to the detriment of my liberty.

I have one abiding religion-human liberty.

We learn that Comrade [President of South Africa Nelson] Mandela has announced in a speech that he hopes for a bright future in South Africa for ‘liberty’ and ‘equality.’ Anyone who has thought about it realizes that liberty and equality are antithetical concepts. You can have one, or you can have the other, but you certainly cannot have both. As to that, either concept is a rather futile goal. Equality is biologically impossible, and liberty is only obtainable in homogeneous populations very thinly spread.

Scratch an egalitarian, and you will inevitably find a statist.

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths - that all of us are created equal - is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

At this moment in history, we are called to act as if we truly believe that liberty and justice for all is a desirable thing.

We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.

The liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which liberty is secured by the equality of restraint. A constitution of things in which the liberty of no one man, and no body of men, and no number of men, can find means to trespass on the liberty of any person, or any description of persons, in the society. This kind of liberty is, indeed, but another name for justice.

I'm still committed to the socialist idea because the socialist idea, correctly understood, includes the principles of freedom and social justice. It also includes the recognition of the value of democracy. When we speak about social justice, it means that freedom should be used not only in the interest of profit but also in the interest of the advancement of the people who create all values.