Friedrich Hayek Quotes

The idea of a merit rating is alluring. The sound of the words captivates the imagination: pay for what you get; get what you pay for; motivate people to do their best, for their own good. ... The effect is exactly the opposite of what the words promise.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself, running around, not married, staying out all night. Ashamed!" "Ashamed!" my grandmother echoed. Good to know they still agreed on things after forty-three years of marriage.

A lot of bad stuff in the world wasn’t really that bad until someone tried to change it.

In the Small group the individual can know the effects of his actions on his several fellows, and the rules may effectively forbid him to harm them in any manner and even require him to assist them in specific ways. In the Great Society many of the effects of a person's actions on various fellows must be unknown to him. It can, therefore, not be the specific effects in the particular case, but only rules which define kinds of actions prohibited or required, which must serve as guides to the individual.

Introverts living under the Extroversion Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are.

Having to be different is the same trap as having to be the same.

As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals -- or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all.

The promises of higher education and previously enviable credentials have turned into the swindle of fulfillment.

Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, "I am what I do.

Social evolution may be the result of intention, but it rarely, if ever, produces the result intended.

Most religion-mongers have bated their paradises with a bit of toasted cheese. They have tempted the body with large promises of possessions in their transmortal El Dorado. Sancho Panza will not quit his chimney-corner, but under promise of imaginary islands to govern.

Dammit Sir, it's your duty to get married. You can't always be living for pleasure!

False as the adulterate promises of favorites in power when poor men court them.

God grant ... that he may learn to understand in time, that whoso is minded to do as he himself wills will soon enough see the day when he will find he has done that which he had never willed.

Often we tell ourselves, "Don't just sit there, do something!" But when we practice awareness, we discover that the opposite may be more helpful: "Don't just do something, sit there!"

The pejorative term "political correctness" was adapted to express disapproval of the enlargement of etiquette to cover all people, in spite of this being a principle to which all Americans claim to subscribe.

Marriage is not a priority for me. I'm not saying I'll never do it. It's just not where we are as a family . . . I'll be at home with my man, having a perfectly loving time, and I'll see all these comments on some site about how wrong I am for not being married. I don't feel less loved or less loving because I'm not married.

People are going to always have their opinions whether you date a black man or not. I've had girlfriends, family members comment on black men that I've dated as well as white people. People want to see what they want to see. And if anybody doesn't fit that picture they're going to be like, 'Yeah, I didn't see you with him.'

If we become a people who are willing to give up our money and our freedom in exchange for rhetoric and promises, then nothing can save us.

Women have one great advantage over men. It is commonly thought that if they marry they have done enough, and need career no further. If a man marries, on the other hand, public opinion is all against him if he takes this view.

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal. Both assumptions are false: both of them must be accepted as true if we are to go on eating and working and loving, and are to keep open a few breathing holes for the human spirit.

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: 'You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man.' Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices, always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now, marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don't teach boys the same?

It is monstrous that custom should force us to display our faces ostentatiously, however worn and wrinkled and mean they may be, whilst carefully concealing all our other parts, however shapely and well preserved.

Those who give you a serpent when you ask for a fish, may have nothing but serpents to give.

It sometimes looks as though woman would not be woman unless man insisted upon it, since she tends so markedly to be just a human being when away from men, and only on their approach does she begin to play her required role.