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The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be a wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born.

— Friedrich Hayek Law, Legislation and Liberty (1973)

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More quotes by Friedrich Hayek

We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988)

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

The Constitution of Liberty (1960)

The more the state "plans" the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.

The Road to Serfdom (1944)

Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.

The Constitution of Liberty (1960)

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We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

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Economics is on the side of humanity now.

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Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.

John Stuart Mill Principles of Political Economy (1848)

Economy, in the estimation of common minds, often means the absence of all taste and comfort.

Sydney Smith Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Friedrich Hayek (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.