Unlike the rationalism of the French Revolution, true liberalism has no quarrel with religion, and I can only deplore the militant and essentially illiberal antireligionism which animated so much of nineteenth-century Continental liberalism. ... What distinguishes the liberal from the conservative here is that, however profound his own spiritual beliefs, he will never regard himself as entitled to impose them on others and that for him the spiritual and the temporal are different sphere which ought not to be confused.

Our moral traditions developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product.

We shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in.

[The] impersonal process of the market ... can be neither just nor unjust, because the results are not intended or foreseen.

We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.

Each member of society can have only a small fraction of the knowledge possessed by all, and...each is therefore ignorant of most of the facts on which the working of society rests...civilization rests on the fact that we all benefit from knowledge which we do not possess. And one of the ways in which civilization helps us to overcome that limitation on the extent of individual knowledge is by conquering intelligence, not by the acquisition of more knowledge, but by the utilization of knowledge which is and which remains widely dispersed among individuals.

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.