“What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.”

—  Friedrich Hayek

Source: 1960s–1970s, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), p. 6.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free." by Friedrich Hayek?
Friedrich Hayek photo
Friedrich Hayek79
Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economic… 1899–1992

Related quotes

Eric Hoffer photo

“To the intellectual the struggle for freedom is more vital than the actuality of a free society. He would rather "work, fight, talk, for liberty than have it."”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 12: "Concerning Individual Freedom". [In this passage "work, fight, talk, for liberty than have it" is a quotation of Lincoln Steffens from The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (1931), p. 635]

Jean Paul Sartre photo

“He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Age of Reason

L'âge de raison (The Age of Reason) (1945)

George Fitzhugh photo

“[T]he unrestricted exploitation of so-called free society is more oppressive to the laborer than domestic slavery.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. ix

Ellen Willis photo

“Dylan is free now to work on his own terms. It would be foolish to predict what he will do next.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Dylan" in Representative Men : Cult Heroes of Our Time (1970) edited by Theodore L. Gross
Context: Dylan is free now to work on his own terms. It would be foolish to predict what he will do next. But hopefully he will remain a mediator, using the language of pop to transcend it. If the gap between past and present continues to widen, such mediation may be crucial. In a communications crisis, the true prophets are the translators.

“Of offering more than what I can deliver,
I have a bad habit, it is true.
But I have to offer more than I can deliver,
To be able to deliver what I do.”

Ken Kesey (1935–2001) novelist

William Harcourt photo

“If there be any party which is more pledged than another to resist a policy of restrictive legislation, having for its object social coercion, that party is the Liberal party. (Cheers.) But liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right, (Hear, hear.) The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes; a Liberal Government tries, as far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do as he wishes. It has been the tradition of the Liberal party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the place where people can do more what they please than in any other country in the world.”

William Harcourt (1827–1904) British politician

Speech in Oxford town hall (30 December 1872), quoted in The Times (31 December 1872), p. 5

Simon Soloveychik photo

“A free man - is a man who is free internally. As all other people, externally he or she depends on society. Internally he or she is independent. A society can become liberated externally - from oppression, but it can become free only when the majority of people are free internally.”

Simon Soloveychik (1930–1996) Russia writer and philosopher

Who Is a Free Man. What Is Freedom? http://parentingforeveryone.com/freeman/ <br class="br">Chelovek Svobodny (Free Man) (1994)

Langston Hughes photo

“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Mir-Hossein Mousavi photo

“People must be able to express their opinion and protest freely. A free society in the country can protect it much better than any military force.”

Mir-Hossein Mousavi (1941) Iranian politician and architect

As quoted in "The Political Evolution of Mousavi" by Muhammad Sahimi, PBS Frontline : Tehran Bureau (16 February 2010)

Eric Hoffer photo

“True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 101
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole — the church, party, nation — and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society.

Related topics