Alexander Meiklejohn Quotes

But the general welfare must restrict and regulate the exertions of the individuals, as the individuals must derive a supply of their strength from social power.

Are the welfare and safety of the whole body politic anything else than the welfare and safety of all its individual members?

The individual must not be allowed to be overly free, but the country must be entirely free. When the country can exercise freedom, China will have become a mighty and prosperous nation.

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

Advocating the expansion of the powers of the state is treason to mankind

The health of a nation is inversely proportional to the number of laws needed to govern it

The nation becomes the master of its fate not only when it has many good sons, but also when it possesses enough strength to restrain its bad ones.

Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.

The state is therefore everyone; the rules within the state are laws which safeguard the welfare of all and which must originate from the welfare of all.

Liberty is the luxury of self-discipline, that those nations historically who have failed to discipline themselves have had discipline imposed by others.

Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.

An individual, in promoting his own interest, may injure the public interest; a nation, in promoting the general welfare, may check the interest of a part of its members.

I believe nobody is stronger than the state. So the state would be strong, and we have to work altogether to make the strength of the state.

Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People.

Nature has made men free and equal. The distinctions necessary for social order are only founded on general utility.

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.

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.

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.

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.

Success in war and preservation of a country's social framework as a purpose at least equal in importance to welfare of individuals.

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire.

Liberals worry that what's best for the individual might not be better for the public at large. But that philosophy assumes something vicious about each and every one of us. It assumes we only care about ourselves.

The history of government is the history of two conflicting principles: one is the supreme importance of the State; the other is the supreme importance of the individual.

Self Control, Not State Control