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Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse Quotes (1864-1929)
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About Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (8 September 1864 – 21 June 1929) was a British liberal politician and sociologist, who has been considered one of the leading and earliest proponents of social liberalism. His works, alongside that of writers such as T.H. Green and John A. Hobson, occupy a seminal position within the canon of New Liberalism.
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“The foundation of liberty is the idea of growth.”
“Does scope for individual development, for example, consort with idea of equality?”
“In modern industry there is very little that the individual can do by his unaided efforts.”
“We need less of the fanatics of sectarianism and more of the unifying mind.”
“Government must keep the ring, and leave it for individuals to play the game.”
“The fancied clearness of Utopian vision is illusory, because its objects are artificial ideas and not living facts.”
“The more the individual receives free scope for the play of his faculties, the more rapidly will society as a whole advance.”
“He is a citizen of the world in that he represents his nation, which is a member of the community of the world.”
“At all times men have lived in societies, and ties of kinship and of simple neighbourhood underlie every form of social organization.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“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.”
“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 modern state is the distinctive product of a unique civilization. But it is a product which is still in the making, and a part of the process is a struggle between old and new principles of social order.”
“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.”
“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 his disposal, to be treated according to his caprice, is a slave to that other.”
“Excess of liberty contradicts itself. In short, there is no such thing; there is only liberty for one and restraint for another. If liberty then be regarded as a social ideal, the problem of establishing liberty must be a problem of organizing restraints; and thus the conception of a liberty which is to set an entire people free from its government appears to be a self-contradictory ideal.”
What Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse Said About Others
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Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse on John Stuart Mill
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse on William Ewart Gladstone
“The Gladstonian principle may be defined by antithesis to that of Machiavelli, and to that of Bismarck, and to the practice of every Foreign Office. As that practice proceeds on the principle that reasons of State justify everything, so Gladstone proceeded on the principle that reasons of State justify nothing that is not justified already by the human conscience. The statesman is for him a man charged with maintaining not only the material interests but the honour of his country. He is a citizen of the world in that he represents his nation, which is a member of the community of the world. He has to recognize rights and duties, as every representative of every other human organization has to recognize rights and duties. There is no line drawn beyond which human obligations cease. There is no gulf across which the voice of human suffering cannot be heard, beyond which massacre and torture cease to be execrable. Simply as a patriot, again, a man should recognize that a nation may become great not merely by painting the map red, or extending her commerce beyond all precedent, but also as the champion of justice, the succourer of the oppressed, the established home of freedom. From the denunciation of the Opium War, from the exposure of the Neapolitan prisons, to his last appearance on the morrow of the Constantinople massacre this was the message which Gladstone sought to convey. He was before his time. He was not always able to maintain his principle in his own Cabinet, and on his retirement the world appeared to relapse definitely into the older ways.”
About Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (8 September 1864 – 21 June 1929) was a British liberal politician and sociologist, who has been considered one of the leading and earliest proponents of social liberalism. His works, alongside that of writers such as T.H. Green and John A. Hobson, occupy a seminal position within the canon of New Liberalism.