Our faith in freedom does not rest on the foreseeable results in particular circumstances, but on the belief that it will, on balance, release more forces for the good than for the bad ... Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.
Interpretation
True freedom is based on the belief in its overall positive impact, rather than guaranteeing specific positive outcomes.
Friedrich August Von Hayek emphasizes that authentic freedom cannot be conditional on predictable positive results; instead, it should stem from a deep-rooted conviction that freedom will ultimately lead to more good than harm. This statement calls for a trust in the liberating power of freedom itself, suggesting that it is the essence of freedom to allow individuals to make choices, even if some results are uncertain or potentially negative.
In practice
In a speech advocating for civil liberties, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of unconditional freedom.
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress... 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.
Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.
It is because freedom means the renunciation of direct control of individual efforts that a free society can make use of so much more knowledge than the mind of the wisest ruler could comprehend.
The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use.
Life is rather a state of embryo, a preparation for life; a man is not completely born till he has passed through death.
Je est un autre. (I is someone else).
What I am is a heretic who's recanted and, thereby, in everyone's eyes, saved his soul. Everyone's eyes but one, who knows deep down inside that all he has saved is his skin.
Cutting PBS support (0.012% of budget) to help balance the Federal budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive
That's one of those meaningless and unanswerable questions the mind keeps returning to endlessly, like the tongue exploring a broken tooth.
Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.
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