Our submission to general principles is necessary because we cannot be guided in our practical action by full knowledge and evaluation of the consequences. So long as men are not omniscient, the only way in which freedom can be given to the individual is by such general rules to delimit the sphere in which the decision is his. There can be no freedom if the government is not limited to particular kinds of action but can use its powers in any ways which serve particular ends.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of general principles in guiding individual freedom within society, given our limited knowledge of consequences.
Friedrich August Von Hayek argues that in a world where humans lack complete knowledge, the existence of freedom for individuals relies on the implementation of general rules that define the boundaries of government action. Without such limitations, freedom cannot exist, as the government could potentially act in any manner that satisfies its particular interests, thereby infringing on individual liberty.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the role of government in a democratic society.
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
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.
Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.
It is because freedom means the renunciation of direct control of individual efforts that a free society can make use of so much more knowledge than the mind of the wisest ruler could comprehend.
The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use.
Often we mistake stability, in terms of security and economic activity, to mean a country is doing well. We forget the third and important pillar: rule of law and respect for human rights.
The journey is better than the inn".
So many things which once had distressed or revolted him β the speeches and pronouncements of the learned, their assertions and their prohibitions, their refusal to allow the universe to move β all seemed to him now merely ridiculous, non-existent, compared with the majestic reality, the flood of energy, which now revealed itself to him: omnipresent, unalterable in its truth, relentless in its development, untouchable in its serenity, maternal and unfailing in its protectiveness.
There's always a sense that people will do things quite differently if they think they have privacy.
Wasting time has an esthetics to it.
The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.