Human interest

“ This term interest, which commonly implies little more than our property, is sometimes put for utility in general, and this for happiness; insomuch, that, under these ambiguities, it is not surprising we are still unable to determine, whether interest is the only motive of human action, and the standard by which to distinguish our good from our ill. ”

“ Wherefore for the public interest and benefit of human society it is requisite that the highest obligations possible should be laid upon the consciences of men. ”

“ Yes, such as the desire of knowledge, of society, of distinction, of wealth; friendship, gratitude, and many more. Indeed, it is not possible to incite a human being to any sort of good and noble conduct but you touch a responsive spring. ”

“ And in the same way, when we deal with Man, — with the concrete issues of his daily life, — with the problems of private passion or of public policy, we have to do, primarily, with human nature as it is, and with all the unconquerable naïveté of our desires, of our imperfections, and even of our virtues. ”

“ This temper of mind, when unalloyed by shallow conceit, begets a quiet self-respect and simple honesty of judgment, eminently serviceable in the struggle to live wisely.
To the best citizens of every nation the most interesting and vital of all questions is what we are here for, what men and women are seeking to accomplish, what is to be the future of human development. ”

“ Nevertheless, as the supports of life, and the pure sense agreeables and exemptions, come to us in great part through the medium of fellow-beings, the value of the social regards receives from this cause an enormous augmentation, and, in the total, counts for one paramount object of human solicitude. ”

“ As human Affairs go, I thought it was a Thing well worth the accepting. Do you look upon it a small Happiness to have so many Advantages to fall into a Man's Mouth, as tho' they dropt out of Heaven; handsome Houses well furnish'd, a large Revenue, an honourable Society, and a Church at Hand, to serve God in, when you have a Mind to it? ”

“ But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for—life for all men as for yourselves—if you can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace;—then, and so sanctifying wealth into 'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily labours, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. ”

“ What the exigencies of the modern age demand, more than aught else, is a new movement for the moral elevation of the race. Now the basic facts of man's moral nature, though insufficiently illustrated in practice, are universally admitted among civilized human beings. ”

“ Beyond all question, as thus witnessed in the universal moral consciousness, these relations from the most general, that of man to man, down through all special connections, as between parents and children, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, rulers and citizens, employer and employé, rich and poor, capable and helpless, and all the other human interrelations in their thousands of diversified forms, do determine and impose both general and specific duties. ”

“ Our own social values involve conceptions of human beings, human relationships, and social systems.
We regard men as infinitely precious and possessed of unfulfilled capacities for reason, freedom, and love. ”

“ That’s their interest—that they are the people; for what interest, under the sun, would they have if they weren’t? They are the people ‘arrived,’ and, what is more, disembarked: that’s all the difference. ”

“ Their observation of human life must inform them of the ways that men take to conciliate the good will of their fellows, to prosecute their own advantages in the world, and to acquire the confidence and esteem of that society, in which they are stationed. What they find to be the rule of others, must be a rule to themselves. ”

“ Let those who would study well this social question, or who in public trusts are charged with its solution, be most careful here. Every motive in the minds of these people, whether of instinct, desire, or duty, must be addressed. ”

“ Of acts of other men, which are useful to us, a great number can be bought by wealth, or commanded by power, or elicited by dignity. The mode of the operation of those causes has already been explained, and the motives into the composition of which they enter, form a different class. The acts of beneficence, of justice, of fortitude, and of prudence, performed by other men in our behalf, are, to a vast extent, such as can neither be bought, nor commanded. ”

“ Professional persons of all kinds need it. A world that is on the verge of despair because of the breakdown of harmonious human relations needs it to reassure itself of the value and the possibility of normal human relations. ”

“ In the possessor of wealth and power, they are necessary to give effect to his good disposition; in all men they are an instrument of power; and they are intimately associated, in well-educated minds, with the idea of the great benefits to mankind, which have been, and will be, derived from them. ”

“ Secondly, that while there is diversity as to many points, there is none in its judgments as to the great body of virtues and vices of human life. As to all the49 leading qualities of character and conduct there is full and universal agreement. With respect to all the cardinal virtues, such as justice, kindness, veracity, love, courage, fidelity, generosity, the moral judgments approve them as the magnet owns its pole, in all the multi-form relations and offices of life. ”

“ This improvement in the moral sentiments of mankind, and increased sense of the consideration due by every man to those who have no one but himself to look to, has tended to make home more and more the centre of interest, and domestic circumstances and society a larger and larger part of life, and of its pursuits and pleasures. ”

“ I apprehend that it ought to include all that part which concerns only the life, whether inward or outward, of the individual, and does not affect the interests of others, or affects them only through the moral influence of example. ”

“ I am content here to leave under the scrutiny of the evening my general statement, that as human development, when moral, is with special effort in a given direction, so, when moral, it is with special effort in favour of a limited class ”

“ Your life is worth, not what you have, but what you are, and what you are is determined by that to which you dedicate yourself. Is it creature comforts, pleasure, selfish privilege, or the largest life and the fullest service of humanity? What you have is merely the condition, the important question is, what do you do with it? Is it wealth, prosperity: do you sit down comfortably on the fact of it, to secure all the selfish pleasures possible; or do you regard your fortunate circumstances as so much more opportunity and obligation of leadership and service? ”

“ So there are types of men to whom the outer world, whether it is in its "other people," or its things, or its facts, or its attractions and repulsions, is the chief source of interest and these are the objective types, exteriorized folks, whose values lie in the goods they can accumulate, or the people they can help, or the external power they exercise, or the knowledge they possess of the phenomena of the world, or the things they can do with their hands. ”

“ What is the value, of present-day knowledge if not to stimulate the conscious group, through the individual perhaps, but the group finally, to better use of its powers and opportunities toward a higher form of social life? ”

“ He must conceive of the well-being of these others as a permanent object bound up with his own, and the interest in it as thus conceived must be a motive to him over and above any succession of passing desires to obtain pleasure from, or give pleasure to, the others ”

“ As the great purpose of human life is to develop [Pg 299] the individual into the complete and perfect man in body and spirit, so the purpose of society is to help furnish the means thereto; to defend each, and furnish him an opportunity and all possible help to become a complete and perfect man. ”

“ I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. Those interests, I contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control, only in respect to [Pg 20] those actions of each, which concern the interest of other people. ”

“ The men that you meet with in all their variety of intellectual and moral nature, the political and social forces at work around you, the tendencies and aims of current speculation, will furnish to the well-trained mind, food for constant thought—for such thought as may elevate and brace the whole inner life by keeping it in perpetual contact with what is real and enduring beneath the shows of the fleeting hour. ”

“ It must be our dearest wish, as it is our highest interest, that this task be well performed. And we should assiduously bring to bear upon them all the moral influences within our reach to make them do it well. ”

“ Though there was no community of wealth, yet there was one of feeling, such as springs from education, character, and kindred aspirations after whatever is captivating in the intellectual, or good in the moral world. ”

“ This day you commence those studies on which independence, prosperity, respectability, and the comfort and happiness of those who will be dearest to you, must depend. For, trust me, these things mainly depend on excellence in the profession or occupation, whatever it may be, which a man chooses as the business of his life. ”

“ This is the ideal relation between the individual and the social order. The greatest duty confronting each one in the world, and the one which all should earnestly embrace, is the duty of making the most of one's self with the ulterior view of contributing the largest measure of usefulness to his fellow-men. ”

“ The great means of progress, for individuals, for nations, and for the race at large, is the multiplication of Objects of interest. The indulgence of the passions is the characteristic of men and societies who have but one occupation and a single interest; while the passions cause comparatively little trouble where the intellect is active, and the life diversified with objects. ”

“ Since, then, there is in every virtue a certain care which turns its eyes abroad, as it were, and which is anxious about and embraces others, the conclusion is, that friends, and brothers, and relations, and connexions, and fellow-countrymen, and in short everybody, since we wish the society of all mankind to be one, are to be sought after for their own sakes. But still, of all these things and people there is nothing of such a kind that it can be accounted the chief good. And from this it follows, that there are found to be two kinds of goods which are to be sought for their own sake. ”

“ The modification of men's moral natures, caused by the continuous discipline of social life, which adapts them more and more to social relations, is therefore the chief proximate cause of social progress. ”

“ In setting out the development of society as his aim, the individual makes considerable sacrifices. All that is distinctly individual must go, in character, in work, in science, and art, and that which is concerned with the common need of society must receive attention. ”

“ You have power, you have wealth, you have rank, you have station, you have organization. What have we? We think that we have the people's heart; we believe and we know we have the promise of the harvest of the future. ”

“ Secondly, he strongly associates with his own beneficial acts, both that approbation of other men, which is of so much importance to him, and that approbation which he bestows on other men’s beneficial acts. ”

“ In submitting fine art to moral criticism, I shall use it as the best representative of the whole class of activities which I have just described. If we have not been wholly astray in our analysis of the good, it should appear that these activities owe their pre-eminence not to their bare quality or tone, but to their humanity, that is, to their connection with a harmonious, just, and progressive state of society. ”

“ In short, he believed that the interests of men in society should be consulted, and their several stations and employments assigned, with a view to their nature, not as physical, but as moral beings, so as to nourish their hopes, to lift their imagination, to enliven their fancy, to rouse their activity, to strengthen their virtue, and to furnish the greatest number of objects of pursuit and means of enjoyment to beings constituted as man is, consistently with the order and stability of the whole. ”

“ Now since every activity, whether of knowing or doing, aims at some good, it is for us to settle what the good is which the civic activity aims at,—what, in short, is the ultimate end of all 'goods' connected with conduct? ”

“ Mankind, we are told, are devoted to interest; and this, in all commercial nations, is undoubtedly true. But it does not follow, that they are, by their natural dispositions, averse to society and mutual affection: proofs of the contrary remain, even where interest triumphs most. ”

“ That which, when we become capable of reflection, we term conscience, consists in pleasure in forms of action furthering the welfare of society—forms gradually moulded to habit with the development of social relations,—and in a corresponding pain at the realization of having failed of such action; the knowledge of the demand, by society as a whole or by a part of society, of action in accord with the general welfare, and the sense of the justice of this demand, constituting the feeling of obligation and duty. ”

“ Whatever might be the individual value of our life, is it not so short and fragile already, that we should seek with care the occasions of being useful to our fellow men? Your rare merit permits you to render great services to humanity. ”