Friedrich Hayek

"The price of a good in a competitive market reveals something about its relative scarcity and value."

"Democracy without constitutional limits is merely majority tyranny with better public relations."

"The test of any theory is whether it can explain the phenomena we observe without requiring us to assume superhuman knowledge."

"A society that values security over freedom will eventually lose both."

"The great problem of central planning is not malice, but ignorance on a systematic scale."

"What we call 'luck' is often the result of preparation meeting opportunity in a free system."

"The virtues of capitalism are not moral in the sense of Christian charity, but pragmatic in their effects."

"Every attempt to enforce an ideal conception of justice will destroy the conditions for actual justice."

"The businessman who succeeds does so not by being selfish, but by understanding what others want and providing it."

"When all decisions are centralized, innovation ceases because the incentive to improve disappears."

"The claim that democracy requires economic equality is historically and logically unfounded."

"Language evolves to serve human purposes; government does not evolve the same way because it lacks the discipline of competition."

"The person who believes he can rationally plan a complex economy is either ignorant or dishonest."

"Liberty requires that we tolerate the existence of much that we dislike."

"The instinct to organize society according to rational principles is the instinct toward tyranny."

"Genuine progress occurs when we discover new ways to satisfy old desires or new desires we didn't know we had."

"The merit of a system lies not in the intentions of those who design it, but in the results it produces."

"To say that markets fail is to ignore the far greater and more systematic failures of government planning."

"The person who thinks he is not influenced by ideology is precisely the person most dangerously influenced by it."

"A constitution that restrains the majority is more important than simple majority rule."

"The division of labor requires that we trust the competence of strangers we will never meet."

"What appears spontaneous and unplanned is often the most carefully organized system of all."

"The claim that we can plan our way to prosperity is refuted by every attempt to do so throughout history."

"Those who suffer most under tyranny are often those who most actively support it in the hope of greater benefits."

"The right to property is not a capitalist invention; it is a prerequisite for any functioning human society."

"When government tries to eliminate risk, it often eliminates the conditions for productive activity as well."

"The person who says 'this cannot be done' will find himself subordinate to the person who says 'let me try.'"

"Specialization and trade make it possible for people with radically different values to peacefully coexist."

"The great advantage of tradition is not that it is correct, but that it embodies the accumulated wisdom of millions."

"When we say a market failed, we usually mean it failed to produce the outcome we desired, not that it failed to function."