Friedrich August von Hayek

“It can hardly be denied that such a demand quite arbitrarily limits the facts which are to be admitted as possible causes of the events which occur in the real world.”

“'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.”

“We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.”

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

“We know, in other words, the general conditions in which what we call, somewhat misleadingly, an equilibrium will establish itself: but we never know what the particular prices or wages are which would exist if the market were to bring about such an equilibrium.”

“To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.”

“It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide.”

“We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.”