Friedrich Hayek Quotes

Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.

Quite as serious an error [of the French] is the failure to provide for local self-government. As this lies at the bottom of republican institutions, and should be, moreover, the first concern of democracy

Local self-government…is the life-blood of liberty.

Where there is only a national representative government without local self-government, there is no liberty as we understand it

Perhaps democracy should be begun at the local level first. America was many local democracies before democracy came to the national level.

With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.

The value of democracy lies in the fact that good or bad government has its roots in the localities where people know each other and where they account for their actions to their neighbors.

I have always insisted on the need for local self-government for Russia, but I never opposed this model to Western democracy. On the contrary, I have tried to convince my fellow citizens by citing the examples of highly effective local self-government systems in Switzerland and New England, both of which I saw first-hand.

Meiklejohn's position is that free speech in a democracy is not an absolute flowing from the boundless source of some presumed 'natural right.' It is a practical necessity of 'self-government by universal suffrage,' for if the citizens are not permitted to argue out the issues of government, how can they be what they must be in a democracy - the rulers as well as the ruled?

democracy ... begins from the ground up. Anything living grows from the bottom up. Everything dangerous, like bombs, gets dropped from the sky down.

One of the signs that things are going reasonably well for democracy is that we have the states where they're closer to the people. Federalism is a strength. We have all of these civil society institutions - civil society is a very important hallmark of democracy.

Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest.

People want the government to go back to the people.

No government can continue good, but under the control of the people.

Jan Bhagidari is the biggest asset of a democracy. We are increasing it through MyGov, letters from citizens, Mann Ki Baat and other initiatives.

The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.

Under my plan, the state will be there to carry out the will of the people, not to dictate to them or to force them to do its will.

The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. . . . [A] government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect . . . their governors are educated.

Lincoln's reference to government of the people, by the people, for the people is a generally satisfactory definition of democracy. I say generally because when it comes to fair and workable details, democracy fails to completely meet the criteria enunciated by Lincoln by a rather wide margin.

The elections are the greatest symbol of participation and political reform.

There is no more democratic government than a revolutionary government.

No government demands so much from the citizens as democracy and none gives back so much.

No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.

As long as the government's actions are secret, it cannot be held accountable. A government for the people and by the people should be transparent to the people.

the qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training.