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We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes.

Friedrich August von Hayek

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Friedrich August von Hayek
Age: 92 †
Born: 1899
Born: May 8
Died: 1992
Died: March 23
Economist
Historian
Philosopher
Political Scientist
University Teacher
Vienna
Austria
Friedrich August von Hayek
Friedrich von Hayek
Friedrich A. von Hayek
Friedrich A. Von Hayek
F. A. von Hayek
Friedrich August Von Hayek
Hayek
F. A. Hayek
Way
Abuse
Never
Prepared
Limits
Shall
Occasionally
Purpose
Desirable
Use
Purposes
Power
Prevent
May
Limit

More quotes by Friedrich August von Hayek

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Civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone.
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The mind cannot foresee its own advance.
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If we can reduce the risk of friction likely to lead to war, this is probably all we can reasonably hope to achieve.
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Without a theory the facts are silent.
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Never will man penetrate deeper into error than when he is continuing on a road which has led him to great success
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Socialism can only be put into practice only by methods which most socialists disapprove.
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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
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Planning leads to dictatorship because dictatorship is the most effective instrument of coercion and the enforcement of ideals and, as such, essential if central planning on a large scale is to be possible.
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We must shed the illusion that we can deliberately create the future of mankind. This is the final conclusion of the forty years which I have now devoted to the study of these problems
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Any man who is only an economist is unlikely to be a good one.
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If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.
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Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.
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[The] impersonal process of the market ... can be neither just nor unjust, because the results are not intended or foreseen.
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To combat depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection -- a procedure which can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end.
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Freedom can be preserved only if it is treated as a supreme principle which must not be sacrificed for particular advantages.
Friedrich August von Hayek
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What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.
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Independence of mind or strength of character is rarely found among those who cannot be confident that they will make their way by their own effort.... Indeed, when security is understood in too absolute a sense, the general striving for it, far from increasing the chances of freedom, becomes the greatest threat to it.
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The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the wrong beliefs.
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Economic transactions between national bodies who are at the same time the supreme judges of their own behavior, who bow to no superior law, and whose representatives cannot be bound by any considerations but the immediate interest of their respective nations, must end in clashes of power.
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Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement.
Friedrich August von Hayek