Quote

Least of all shall we preserve democracy or foster its growth if all the power and most of the important decisions rest with an organization far too big for the common man to survey or comprehend.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Men
Democracy
Surveys
Shall
Comprehend
Least
Preserve
Decision
Preserves
Common
Decisions
Bigs
Organization
Power
Growth
Survey
Important
Rest
Foster

More quotes by Friedrich August von Hayek

Image
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.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
The more I learn about the evolution of ideas, the more I have become aware that I am simply an unrepentant Old Whig-with the stress on the old.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
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.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
Liberty'''.that condition of man in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as possible in society
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest functionaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose desecration it depends whether and how I am allowed to live or to work.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
We shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rates higher and which lower, in short, what men should believe and strive for.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
It may be that a free society... carries in itself the forces of its own destruction, that once freedom has been achieved it is taken for granted and ceases to be valued, and that the free growth of ideas which is the essence of a free society will bring about the destruction of the foundations on which it depends.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress... it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
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.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
I must confess that if I had been consulted whether to establish a Nobel Prize in economics, I should have decidedly advised against it.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
Through the inevitable mismanagement of resources and goods at the disposal of the state, all forms of collectivism lead eventually to tyranny.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
I regard it in fact as the great advantage of the mathematical technique that it allows us to describe, by means of algebraic equations, the general character of a pattern even where we are ignorant of the numerical values which will determine its particular manifestation.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
The conservative feels safe and content only if he is assured that some higher wisdom watches and supervises change, only if he knows that some authority is charged with keeping the change orderly.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
If democracy is a means rather than an end, its limits must be determined in the light of the purpose we want it to serve.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
Nothing is more securely lodged than the ignorance of the experts.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Image
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