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592 books
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139 voters
Isaac Chan
https://www.goodreads.com/isaacchan
Isaac Chan
is currently reading
Reading for the 2nd time
read in October 2019
Isaac Chan said:
"
One particular line struck me, which cemented The Road to Serfdom as one of the finest books I've read this year. To quote Hayek, "Planning owes its popularity largely to the fact that everybody desires, of course, that we should handle our common pr
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progress:
(page 7 of 272)
"Note n/n:
whereas the 2 intellectual forebears of National Socialism, Thomas Carlyle and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, were a Scot and an Englishman. (Hayek's point is that it is nonsense to bifurcate that Brits: classical liberals; Germans: socialists)
When I read 'On liberty', I could not sense that Mill drew such influence from Goethe and Humboldt: but I have faith in Hayek's knowledge as a Mill scholar." — Feb 06, 2026 04:56AM
"Note n/n:
whereas the 2 intellectual forebears of National Socialism, Thomas Carlyle and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, were a Scot and an Englishman. (Hayek's point is that it is nonsense to bifurcate that Brits: classical liberals; Germans: socialists)
When I read 'On liberty', I could not sense that Mill drew such influence from Goethe and Humboldt: but I have faith in Hayek's knowledge as a Mill scholar." — Feb 06, 2026 04:56AM
progress:
(page 47 of 304)
"Note 2/2:
certainly doesn't state clearly anywhere in the Treatise or the Enquiry, whether he thinks i) or ii), and idk why. I would've thought it a tremendously important point to make clear." — 7 hours, 40 min ago
"Note 2/2:
certainly doesn't state clearly anywhere in the Treatise or the Enquiry, whether he thinks i) or ii), and idk why. I would've thought it a tremendously important point to make clear." — 7 hours, 40 min ago
“Will mankind listen to any program that implies a constriction of its addiction to exosomatic comfort? Perhaps, the destiny of man is to have a short, but fiery, exciting and extravagant life rather than a long, uneventful and vegetative existence. Let other species - the amoebas, for example - which have no spiritual ambitions inherit an earth still bathed in plenty of sunshine.”
― Energy and economic myths: Institutional and analytical economic essays
― Energy and economic myths: Institutional and analytical economic essays
“I don't know about you, but I always enjoy my leisure time more when I feel like I've earned it, and maybe that's just in my upbringing, and maybe you can rewire people not to feel like they need to earn their leisure time, I don't know.”
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“Everyone thinks that they’re paid to be smart, but very few people are actually paid to be smart.”
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“The historians neither make nor guide history. Their share in such is usually so small as to be almost negligible. But if they do not learn something from history, their activities would then be cultural decoration, or a pleasant pastime, equally useless in these troubled times.”
― Capitalism and Slavery.
― Capitalism and Slavery.
“When intellectuals discover that the world does not behave according to their theories, the conclusion they invariably draw is that the world must be changed. It must be awfully hard to change theories.”
― Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays
― Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays
Isaac’s 2025 Year in Books
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