Thomas Huxley Quotes

I believe in trying to get a balance between individual freedom on the one hand and social responsibility on the other.

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

If what is best in mankind, and what its progress depends on, manifests itself primarily in the individual and only secondarily in the mass, then our objectives should be to maintain such freedom as allows the individual to think and speak for himself.

The best road to progress is freedom's road.

Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony.

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

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 most desirable state of mankind is that which maintains general security with the smallest encroachment upon individual independence.

Britain cherishes her eccentrics and wisely holds that the function of government is to build a walled garden in which anarchy can flourish.

Individual liberty and interdependence are both essential for life in society.

Politics [is] the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint; the more restraint on others to keep off from us, the more liberty we have.

We all know from a study of history the progress of the working people from the stage of barbarism to that of slavery, serfdom and later individual freedom... .

In the matter of social security one thing stands out clearly in my mind. Such things are necessary in order that the weak shall not go to the wall, that the strong may be supported, that all may have justice. But we must never so blanket ourselves that those fine national qualities of which I have spoken shall no longer have play. I know so well that fear, want and idleness can kill the spirit of any people. But I know, too, that security can be bought at too great a cost—the cost of spiritual freedom. How, then, may we strike a balance? That, it seems to me, is the big question for us to decide today

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.

Whatever objection there is to so called violation of personal liberty, it does not count when the supremacy of the law and the stability of our intuitions are menaced.

Education … is the only answer to the always pressing question … of how to reconcile order which is not oppression with freedom which is not license.

Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.

It [liberty] is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.

our society -- unlike most in the world -- presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas.

A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no right or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.

Here is the root of all romanticism: that man, the individual, is an infinite reservoir of possibilities, and if you can so rearrange society by the destruction of oppressive order, then these possibilities will have a chance, and you will get Progress.

Liberty is precious. But so is life. It should not be so difficult for men and women of good will and good heart and sound mind to find the right balance between the two.

Where the realm of freedom of thought and action begin, the determination of individuals according to generic laws ends.