Our predicament is not the difficulty of attaining happiness, but the difficult of avoiding the misery to which the pursuit of happiness exposes us.

The conjunction of ruling and dreaming generates tyranny.

The rule of law bakes no bread, it is unable to distribute loaves or fishes (it has none), and it cannot protect itself against external assault, but it remains the most civilized and least burdensome conception of a state yet to be devised.

We consider ourselves to be free because no one in our society is allowed unlimited powerno leader, faction, party or 'class', no majority, no government, church, corporation, trade, or professional association or trade union. The secret of its freedom is that it is composed of a multitude of organisations in the constitution of the best of which is reproduced that diffusion of power which is characteristic of the whole.

To try to do something which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting enterprise.

Like Midas, the Rationalist is always in the unfortunate position of not being able to touch anything, without transforming it into an abstraction; he can never get a square meal of experience.

It is difficult to thinkof any circumstances where learning may be said to be impossible.