3 Friedrich Hayek Quotes on Growth

Friedrich Hayek quotes on growth

20. The first need is to free ourselves of that worst form of contemporary obscurantism which tries to persuade us that what we have done in the recent past was all either wise or unavoidable. We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.

47. The mind cannot foresee its own advance.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

97. Though quieta non movere may at times be a wise maxim for the statesman it cannot satisfy the political philosopher. He may wish policy to proceed gingerly and not before public opinion is prepared to support it, but he cannot accept arrangements merely because current opinion sanctions them. In a world where the chief need is once more, as it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to free the process of spontaneous growth from the obstacles and encumbrances that human folly has erected, his hopes must rest on persuading and gaining the support of those who by disposition are 'progressives,' those who, though they may now be seeking change in the wrong direction, are at least willing to examine critically the existing and to change it wherever necessary.