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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  John Stuart Mill (1806–73)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1644
AUTHOR: John Stuart Mill (1806–73)
QUOTATION: [On completely popular government:] Its superiority in reference to present well-being rests upon two principles, of as universal truth and applicability as any general propositions which can be laid down respecting human affairs. The first is, that the rights and interests of every or any person are only secure from being disregarded, when the person interested is himself able, and habitually disposed, to stand up for them. The second is, that the general prosperity attains a greater height, and is more widely diffused, in proportion to the amount and variety of the personal energies enlisted in promoting it.
ATTRIBUTION: JOHN STUART MILL, Considerations on Representative Government, chapter 3, p. 55 (1861).
SUBJECTS: Rights