Human Flourishing Quotes

The social order and its development must constantly yield to the good of the person, since the order of things must be subordinate to the order of persons and not the other way around....

If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing.

The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.

In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, everyone who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find the enviable existence

The test of the worth of work is its effect on the worker. If it degrade him, it is bad; if it ennoble him, it is good.

We are not expecting Utopia here on this earth. But God meant things to be much easier than we have made them. A man has a natural right to food, clothing, and shelter. A certain amount of goods is necessary to lead a good life.

To live is not a blessing, but to live well.

Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there are scientific truths to be known about how we can flourish in this world. Wherever we can have an impact on the well-being of others, questions of morality apply.

Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue

Human good turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting excellence, and if there is more than one sort of excellence, in accordance with the best and most complete.Foroneswallowdoesnot makea summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

The folkish philosophy of life must succeed in bringing about that nobler age in which men no longer are concerned with breeding dogs, horses, and cats, but in elevating man himself.

The government is not best which secures mere life and property -- there is a more valuable thing -- manhood.

I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity.

Growth is not an objective in itself; we should be concerned with standards of living.

On the mathematical side, you could in principle build a society in which people were fulfilling their needs and flourishing as human beings in a higher way than in a consumer society, provided you had the right investments in the opportunity to flourish in less materialistic ways.

The older I get, I'm really reminded how important the arts are to our wellbeing as a society.

Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning and training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something god-like and blessed.

I have no sympathy for debunking human achievements that, in the end, gave ordinary people liberty.

Again and again, to be sure, on the way to America, and under many other circumstances, man has passed through the most adverse climates and has survived, but he has flourished and waxed strong only in certain zones.

Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn't exist.

We're all looking for the highest, fullest expression of ourselves as a human being.

Virtue is that perfect good, which is the complement of a happy life; the only immortal thing that belongs to mortality.

The kind of national goal we ought to be thinking about is way beyond national product - it is how do we as a nation help our children be the best kinds of people they could possibly be?

It is worthwhile for one to make an effort to achieve happiness. Just as the purpose of a plant is to grow, so it is that the main purpose of every human being is to survive and to grow until death.

There is a constant trend in human affairs toward the perfectibility of mankind. This was plainly stated at the time of tile French Revolution and has been reasserted ever since that time, and with increasing plausibility.