Extreme poverty would be hard to bear, but a miserable person is miserable however rich. A good character is our most important possession, rich or poor.

It is not a defect of liberal democracies that they are less “pure” than ancient democracies. Pure democracies were prone to factionalism and inconstancy as assemblies were bamboozled by demagogues;.

Philosophy is the art of seeing through appearances to discern the hidden reality.

Justice is the most “political” or institutional of the virtues. The legitimacy of a state rests upon its claim to do justice.

A colleague once described political theorists as people who were obsessed with two dozen books; after half a century of grappling with Mill’s essay On Liberty, or Hobbes’s Leviathan, I have sometimes thought two dozen might be a little on the high side.

Modern liberalism has many roots. One of the most important is the ideas of a man described by an American critic as ‘his satanic free-trade majesty John Stuart Mill’ and revered by others.

We do not go to work only to earn an income, but to find meaning in our lives. What we do is a large part of what we are.

Modern liberalism has many roots. One of the most important is the ideas of a man described by an American critic as 'his satanic free-trade majesty John Stuart Mill' and revered by others.

The revolutionaries failed to institute the novel forms of social and political organization they hankered after; Workers would not accept a ten-day week, or state-appointed priests, or rectangular departements, or the cult of the Supreme Being.

It is never right to injure anyone. It can never be right to make someone worse than he is.