The government and the people are under a moral necessity of acting together; a free press compels them to bend to one another.
James MillOf the laws of nature, on which the condition of man depends, that which is attended with the greatest number of consequences, is the necessity of labor for obtaining the means of subsistence, as well as the means of the greatest part of our pleasure.
James MillNo good government can ever want more than two things for its support: 1st, Its own excellence; and, 2dly, a people sufficiently instructed, to be aware of that excellence. Every other pretended support, must ultimately tend to its subversion, by lessening its dependence upon these.
James MillWhenever the powers of government are placed in any hands other than those of the community, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply that government is at all necessary, imply that those persons will make use of them to defeat the very end for which government exists.
James Mill