Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse

The best and the worst things that men do they do in the name of a religion.

We need less of the fanatics of sectarianism and more of the unifying mind.

Some men are much better and wiser than others, but experience seems to show that hardly any man is so much better than or wiser than others that he can permanently stand the test of irresponsible power over them.

What we possess has its intrinsic value, but how we came to possess it is also an important question.

In modern industry there is very little that the individual can do by his unaided efforts.

Other great sources of wealth are found in financial and speculative operations, often of distinctly anti-social tendency and possible only through the defective organization of our economy.

The fancied clearness of Utopian vision is illusory, because its objects are artificial ideas and not living facts.

Does scope for individual development, for example, consort with idea of equality?

To move towards harmony is the persistent impulse of the rational being, even if the goal lies always beyond the reach of accomplished effort.

The foundation of liberty is the idea of growth.

The Liberal does not meet opinions which he conceives to be false with toleration, as though they did not matter. He meets them with justice, and exacts for them a fair hearing as though they mattered just as much as his own.

Compulsion may be necessary for the purposes of external order, but it adds nothing to the inward life that is the true being of a man.

He is a citizen of the world in that he represents his nation, which is a member of the community of the world.

True consent is free consent, and full freedom of consent implies equality on the part of both parties to bargain.

The more a class is brought low, the greater its difficulty in rising again without assistance. For purposes of legislation the State has been exceedingly slow to accept this view.

If the child was helpless, was the grown up person, man or woman, in a much better position?

Government must keep the ring, and leave it for individuals to play the game.

The more the individual receives free scope for the play of his faculties, the more rapidly will society as a whole advance.

To be effective men must act together, and to act together they must have a common understanding and a common object.

Great changes are not caused by ideas alone; but they are not effected without ideas.

If there is one law for the Government and another for it's subjects, one for noble and another for commoner, one for rich and another for poor, the law does not guarantee liberty for all.

The first condition of universal freedom, that is to say, is a measure of universal restraint. Without such restraint some men may be free but others will be unfree.

Both logically and historically the first point of attack is arbitrary government, and the first liberty to be secured is the right to be dealt with in accordance with law. A man who has no legal rights against another, but stands entirely …

At all times men have lived in societies, and ties of kinship and of simple neighbourhood underlie every form of social organization.