Chris Patten Quotes

If, in the name of liberty, we allow individuals to act in a way that damages the wellbeing of the whole, it will inevitably mean the breakdown of mutuality, thereby changing the very nature of our society.

The love of individual freedom has stood in the way of the appreciation of social obligations.

Freedom requires civil responsibility.

The very freedom we seek cannot be attained until we chain some of our exaggerated individuality.

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it.

This relationship between freedom and responsibility has not always been clearly understood. Some ideologies have placed greater importance on the concept of individual freedom, while others on the unquestioning commitment to the social group. Without a proper balance, unrestricted freedom is as dangerous as imposed social responsibility. Great social injustices have resulted from extreme economic freedom and capitalist greed, while at the same time cruel oppression of people's basic liberties has been justified in the name of communist ideals and society's interests. Either extreme is undesirable.

The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other

No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.

We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.

The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.

In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.

Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society.

In fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right to property.

A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living.

It will always be considered a praiseworthy undertaking to urge the most obstinate and incredulous to abide by the principles that impel men to live in society. There are, therefore, three distinct classes of vice and virtue: the religious, the natural, and the political. These three classes should never be in contradiction with one another.

In a world of democracies, in a world where the great projects that have set humanity on fire are the projects of the emancipation of individuals from entrenched social division and hierarchy; in such a world individuals must never be puppets or prisoners of the societies or cultures into which they have been born.

But we must create in each person a sense of responsibility in order that each one of us can have the right to enjoy all his rights.

In the East, the main object is to have a well-ordered society so that everybody can have maximum enjoyment of his freedoms. This freedom can only exist in an ordered state and not in a natural state of contention and anarchy.

The exercise of natural rights has no limits but such as will ensure their enjoyment to other members of society.

Freedom isn't to do what you want at somebody else's expense.

I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.

The aim of socialism is to give more individual freedom to people.

To affirm my own rights I must define and affirm the rights of others.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these …