13 quotes
To a reluctant admission of the necessity for State action, we join a burning belief in duty, and a deep spiritual ideal of life.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
It would be well if, in studying the past, we could always bear in mind the problems of the present, and go to that past to seek large views of what is of lasting importance to the human race.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
The right method in any particular case must be largely determined by the nature of the problem.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
It is a great law of social development that the movement from slavery to freedom is also a movement from security to insecurity of maintenance.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
Party historians go to the past for party purposes; they seek to read into the past the controversies of the present.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
To the capitalists we appeal to use their wealth, as many of their order already do, as a great national trust, and not for selfish purposes alone.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
Even if the chance should arise of removing a great social evil, nothing must be done to weaken those habits of individual self-reliance and voluntary association which have built up the greatness of the English people.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
On the eve of the industrial revolution there were on every side signs of political change. But the French Revolution frightened statesmen, and political reform in England was delayed for nearly half a century.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
We must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man— for that has to a certain extent been attained already— but how to secure his complete material independence.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
The Comtists are right when they say that men's moral ideas are not fixed. The attitude of public opinion towards slavery was completely changed in twenty or thirty years. Still I am obliged to believe that such a moral revolution as the Comtists hope for is not possible within a reasonable space of time.
Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)
The greatest punishment for those who are not interested in politics is that they are governed by people who are.
Disputed
When a society moves from allocating resources by custom and tradition to allocating resources by markets, they may be said to have undergone an industrial revolution.
Disputed
Apathy can only be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things, first an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and second a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal out into practice.
Attributed