4 Friedrich Hayek Quotes on Learning

Friedrich Hayek quotes on learning

50. The Socratic maxim that the recognition of our ignorance is the beginning of wisdom has profound significance for our understanding of society. Most of the advantages of social life, especially in the more advanced forms that we call 'civilization' rest on the fact that the individual benefits from more knowledge than he is aware of. It might be said that civilization begins when the individual in the pursuit of his ends can make use of more knowledge than he has himself acquired and when he can transcend the boundaries of his ignorance by profiting from knowledge he does not himself possess.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

52. If we are to understand how society works, we must attempt to define the general nature and range of our ignorance concerning it.

55. Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has been wrong.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

144. 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.