„One of the paradoxes of Hayek is that he wrote better than he thought. That is, his writing is often more suggestive and stimulating than the thought that underlaid it. While his writing is, stylistically, difficult, it is also exceptionally profound, and its value lies in its profundity.“

From Gibbs's obituary for Rudolf Clausius (1889). See The Collected Works of J. Willard Gibbs, vol. 2 (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928), p. 267. Complete volume http://www.archive.org/details/collectedworksj00longgoog

„Bobbio’s theoretical defence of the distinction between Left and Right, for all its eloquence, may thus be more vulnerable than it appears. If we ask why this should be so, the answer surely lies in the difficulty of constructing an axiology of political values without coherent reference to the empirical social world. Bobbio often writes as if he could separate his ideal taxonomy from contemporary history, but of course he cannot. In practice he admits the political scenery of the present into his account selectively, for the purposes of his argument. But it is in that present that the deeper reasons and limits of his intervention lie.“

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— Perry Anderson British historian 1938

Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch. 6. "Plotting Values, Norberto Bobbio" (1998)

„There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing — as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.“

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— Eric Hoffer American philosopher 1898 - 1983

Entry (1950)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

„Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.“

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— Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist 1817 - 1862

„Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution.“

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— Edward Teller Hungarian-American nuclear physicist 1908 - 2003

Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics (1991) by Edward Teller, Wendy Teller and Wilson Talley, Ch. 9, p. 135 footnote

„This is worse than Hollywood, he thought. A girl comes in with a pork chop and I write a song for her.“

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— Eva Ibbotson British children's writer 1925 - 2010

„Variation: If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he builds his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door.“

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— Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803 - 1882

Investigations have failed to confirm this in Emerson's writings (John H. Lienhard. "A better moustrap" http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1163.htm, Engines of our Ingenuity). Also reported as a misattribution in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 25. Note that Emerson did say, as noted above, "I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods".
Misattributed

„He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.“

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— Arthur Schopenhauer German philosopher 1788 - 1860

„Nothing is more difficult than writing an autobiography.“

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— Alexandra Kollontai Soviet diplomat 1872 - 1952

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)
Kontext: Nothing is more difficult than writing an autobiography. What should be emphasized? Just what is of general interest? It is advisable, above all, to write honestly and dispense with any of the conventional introductory protestations of modesty. For if one is called upon to tell about one's life so as to make the events that made it what it became useful to the general public, it can mean only that one must have already wrought something positive in life, accomplished a task that people recognize. Accordingly it is a matter of forgetting that one is writing about oneself, of making an effort to abjure one's ego so as to give an account, as objectively as possible, of one's life in the making and of one's accomplishments.

„To his friends he said that he thought the man who feared gibes and jeers was more of a coward than the one who ran away from the enemy.“

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— Fabius Maximus politician and soldier

Moralia: Sayings of Kings and Commanders, Plutarch; English translation by Frank Cole Babbitt
Variant translation by Goodwin:
He that is afraid of scoffs and reproaches is more a coward than he that flies from the enemy.

„Hayek’s practical political thought was flawed not where he postulated too small a role for government, but where he sanctioned too great a role. In his late work, Hayek the classical liberal became Hayek the libertarian.“

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— Alan O. Ebenstein American political scientist, educator and author 1959

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

„Indeed, Hayek’s later monetary work constitutes some of his most creative practical policy suggestions, though his thought in the area was, by his own admission, undeveloped.“

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— Alan O. Ebenstein American political scientist, educator and author 1959

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

„Hayek’s essential political philosophy was that liberty is the supremacy of law. To some, this may appear a paradoxical conception of liberty, for liberty is too often considered to be the absence of law. This, however, was the exact opposite of Hayek’s view. He thought that liberty is not possible without law. Right law is liberty.“

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— Alan O. Ebenstein American political scientist, educator and author 1959

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)