A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow...cannot really know freedom.
Ambition, impatience, and hurry are often admirable in individuals; but they are pernicious...[in] those who...assume that in their authority lies superior wisdom and thus the right to impose their beliefs.
For almost a century the basic principles on which this civilization was built have been falling into increasing disregard and oblivion.
Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.
If in the first attempt to create a world of free men we have failed, we must try again.
If old truths are to retain their hold on men's minds, they must be restated in the language and concepts of successive generations.
If we are to succeed in the great struggle of ideas that is under way, we must first of all know what we believe.
Nowhere has democracy ever worked well without a great measure of local self-government, providing a school of political training for the people at large as much as for their future leaders.
Only where we ourselves are responsible for our own interests and are free to sacrifice them has our decision moral value.
Our freedom is threatened in many fields because of the fact that we are much too ready to leave the decision to the expert or to accept too uncritically his opinion about a problem of which he knows intimately only one little aspect.
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
The guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century.
The members of a society who in all respects are made to do the good thing have no title to praise.
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one.
To prevent people from coercing each other is to coerce them. This means that coercion can only be reduced or made less harmful but not entirely eliminated.
We are neither entitled to be unselfish at someone else’s expense nor is there any merit in being unselfish if we have no choice.
We shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in.
We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes.
What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.