Thomas Aquinas Quotes

The public interest is more than the sum total of the interest groups.

The end of government is the good of mankind.

For all the huffing and blowing we get about rugged individualism, the American spirit and the American experiment always have had at their heart the notion that the government is all of us and that, therefore, the government may keep things in trust for all of us.

The good of the people is the chief law.

I will ever prefer the weal of the public and of the whole commonwealth, in making of good laws and constitutions, to any particular and private ends of mine

Men in their private capacities may be allowed to prefer their single profit, but should consult only the general good in public councils.

A body politic is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.

Private interests must be made subservient to the general interests of the community

There are certain public needs that outweigh private interests.

Every society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

What it missing, I think, is this notion of the common good.

Look around, and you see everywhere the exertions and acts of individuals restricted, regulated, or promoted, on the principle of the common welfare.

A liberty subject to law and subordinate to the common welfare.

People must live with the laws that we make.

The right to private property is inconceivable without responsibilities to the common good.

Government is a progressive instrument for the common good.

In all your acts, self interest shall be cast away. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people, and have always in view not only the present, but of the coming generations.

We need government to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.

The body-politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals: It is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good. It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a Constitution of Government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation, and a faithful execution of them; that every man may, at all times, find his security in them.

Much legislation is moral legislation because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres of life.

The public happiness is the true object of legislation, and can be secured only by the masses of mankind themselves awakening to the knowledge and the care of their own interests.

It is time that we labored for the happiness of the people. Legislators who are to bring light and order into the world must pursue their course with inexorable tread, fearless and unswerving as the sun.

Let us give our Republic not the best possible laws but the best which they will bear.

Laws are there for a reason, and we have an obligation to follow them.