Friedrich A. Hayek Quotes & Sayings

To produce the same result for different people, it is necessary to treat them differently. To give different people the same objective opportunities is not to give them the same subjective chance. It cannot be denied that the Rule of Law produces economic inequality - all that can be claimed for it is that this inequality is not designed to affect particular people in a particular way. — Friedrich A. Hayek

Tradition is not good simply because it is tradition. It is for what it has given us and only so long as an alternative does not prove by its effect that it is better. — Friedrich A. Hayek

(Oxford: Clarendon — Friedrich A. Hayek

The mind can never foresee its own advance — Friedrich A. Hayek

At least insofar as the rules providing for coercion are not aimed at me personally but are so framed as to apply equally to all people in similar circumstances, they are no different from any of the natural obstacles that affect my plans. — Friedrich A. Hayek

Science thus tends necessarily towards an ultimate state in which all knowledge is embodied in the definitions of the objects with which it is concerned; and in which all true statements about these objects are therefore analytical or tautological and could not be disproved by any experience. The observation that any object did not behave as it should could then only mean that it was not an object of the kind it was thought to be. — Friedrich A. Hayek

Law in its ideal form might be described as a 'once-and-for-all' command that is directed to unknown people and that is abstracted from all particular circumstances of time and place and refers only to such conditions as may occur anywhere and at any time. — Friedrich A. Hayek

Our necessary ignorance of so much means that we have to deal largely with probabilities and chances — Friedrich A. Hayek

If we can agree that the economic problem of society is mainly one of rapid adaptation to changes in the particular circumstances of time and place, it would seem to follow that the ultimate decisions must be left to the people who are familiar with these circumstances, who know directly of the relevant changes and of the resources immediately available to meet them. — Friedrich A. Hayek

The very conception of such a completion of the task of science is a contradction in terms. The quest of science is, therefore, by its nature a never-ending task in which every step ahead with necessity creates new problems. — Friedrich A. Hayek

The root and source of all monetary evil is the government's monopoly on money. — Friedrich A. Hayek

Freedom is order through law. — Friedrich A. Hayek

What has made men good is neither nature nor reason but tradition. — Friedrich A. Hayek