Friedrich Hayek Quotes

Freedom can be killed by neglect as well as by direct attack.

If a free society is ever destroyed in America, it will be done in the name of one particular vision of liberty and freedom.

Any individual right or freedom is properly extended only to those who accept the fundamental rules of democracy. How … could any society survive which deliberately nursed its own avowed and irreconcilable assassin, and freely exposed its heart to his knife.

Those who won our independence had confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning and communication of ideas to discover and spread political and economic truth

our society -- unlike most in the world -- presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas.

Freedom is the very essence of our economy and society. Without freedom the human mind is prevented from unleashing its creative force. But what is also clear is that this freedom does not stand alone. It is freedom in responsibility and freedom to exercise responsibility.

Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.

I am not one who, to quote an American author, believes that democracy and enterprise have finally won the battle of ideas - that we have therefore arrived at the end of history, and there is nothing left to fight for. That would be unutterably complacent, indeed foolish. There will always be threats to freedom, not only from frontal assaults, but more insidiously by erosion from within.

If we lose our title of "land of the free," what have we got?

But our society - unlike most in the world - presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas. That is the philosophy of the First Amendment; and it is this article of faith that sets us apart from most nations in the world.

So long as men and women are free, no one is safe. People will be in danger because others can't operate vehicles responsibly or shoot straight. Because physicians are sometimes incompetent and lawyers dishonest. But most of all they will be in danger from ideas. It is the price we willingly pay to be free. Nor would we have it any other way.

Away with the idea of getting independence first, and looking for liberty afterwards... Our liberties, once lost, may be lost forever.

Democracy's my idea. I do not agree with communists, my acts prove. Free press in Cuba - free ideas, freedom religion belief.

Freedom is won by relegating religion to a purely private sphere remote from the body politic. In fact, the establishment of a free society is predicated on the idea that religion must be surgically removed from culture.

I went to visit Frank Capra, one of my idols, and did a kind of Judd Apatow interview with him. I said, "I'd like the Statue of Liberty to disappear, but I want to do it as a lesson in freedom, how valuable freedom is and what the world would be like without liberty." And Frank Capra looked at me and said, "David, I love your idea, but here's what you're going to do. You're going to try and it's not going to work; it's not going to disappear." And I said, "Mr. Capra, I can't do that."

We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.

Freedom, liberty, individual rights, that idea of dealing with other people in a matter that is not initiating force against them, is critical to me.

Books are flesh-and-blood ideas and cry out, silently, when put to the torch.

The idea of God is the type and foundation of the principle of authority and absolutism, which it is our task to destroy or at least to subordinate wherever it manifests itself.

Fear & complacency allow power to accumulate & liberty & privacy to suffer

I'm an American who loves an America which doesn't exist, which is a land of freedom and free ideas.

We must show that liberty is not merely one particular value but that it is the source and condition of most moral values. What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free. We can therefore not fully appreciate the value of freedom until we know how a society of free men as a whole differs from one in which unfreedom prevails.

George Washington might have become our king, but chose not to. His governing idea was that government is our servant because we are inherently free. It is an idea too many in government today forget.

In The Federalist, James Madison called the rage for equality 'a wicked project.' People differ and rewards differ-that's the essence of both liberty and justice. No nation that rewards effort, talent, inventiveness and luck can even pretend to cherish equal outcomes. In an inventive and dynamic society, equal (even relatively equal) incomes can be achieved only by abandoning liberty for tyranny.