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No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
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“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

Adam Smith

Source
The Wealth of Nations
Date
1776
Meaning

Meaning of “No society can surely be flourishing and happy,…”

Smith rejects judging a society as broadly prosperous when the majority of the people who sustain it remain poor and unable to live tolerably well.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter VIII, “Of the Wages of Labour,” Project Gutenberg #3300. Smith follows this sentence by arguing that workers who feed, clothe and lodge society should receive enough of the produce of their labour to be tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.

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CommunityCompassionHappinessHumanityMoneyEthicsJusticePolitics
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Society in equality is its normal state.
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“Society in equality is its normal state.”

John Stuart Mill · The Subjection of Women · 1869
Meaning & context

Mill contrasts relations organized around command and obedience with equal association, presenting equality as the normal direction of an improving society.

Source details

The Subjection of Women (1869), Chapter II, printed page 79, Project Gutenberg #27083. Mill contrasts command-and-obedience relations with equal association and states that society in equality is the normal state toward which improving social relations should move.

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he must try to give happiness to others.
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“he must try to give happiness to others.”

Robert Louis Stevenson · A Christmas Sermon · 1888
Meaning & context

Stevenson makes other people’s happiness part of ordinary moral duty even while admitting that a person may not possess a complete theory of goodness.

Source details

A Christmas Sermon, section III, first published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1888; Project Gutenberg #14535. Stevenson writes that although a person may not know exactly what goodness is or what will make another person happy, he must still try to be good and try to give happiness to others. The inherited section-II note is corrected here after direct source review. This is historical ethical / Christian-sermon argument rather than a guarantee of emotional outcomes.

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One person’s happiness is as sacred as another’s
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“One person’s happiness is as sacred as another’s”

Robert Louis Stevenson · A Christmas Sermon · 1888
Meaning & context

The claim gives equal moral weight to another person’s well-being, supporting intervention against injury without treating one individual’s happiness as inherently more valuable than another’s.

Source details

A Christmas Sermon, section III, Project Gutenberg #14535. In the discussion of intervention, revenge and defending a neighbour, Stevenson says one person’s happiness is as sacred as another’s and argues for defending the injured party when both cannot be protected. The inherited section-II note is corrected here after direct source review; “sacred” is moral rhetoric, not modern legal doctrine.

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You give but little when you give of your possessions.
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“You give but little when you give of your possessions.”

Kahlil Gibran · The Prophet · 1923
Meaning & context

Possessions can be given without much personal cost; Gibran prepares the contrast with giving one’s own time and presence.

Source details

The Prophet, “On Giving.”

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The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
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“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

Jeremy Bentham · An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation · 1789
Meaning & context

Bentham shifts the basis for moral consideration of animals away from intelligence or speech and toward the capacity to experience suffering.

Source details

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chapter XVII, section 1 footnote, reviewed against the represented Liberty Fund text. Bentham's 'Can they suffer?' question appears in his argument that sentience, not species membership or speech, is morally relevant to cruelty; it remains historical utilitarian philosophy rather than current legal doctrine.

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All those governments which have a common good in view are rightly established and strictly just.
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“All those governments which have a common good in view are rightly established and strictly just.”

Aristotle · Politics: A Treatise on Government · 4th century BCE
Meaning & context

Political rule is judged by whether it aims at a shared good rather than merely advancing the private advantage of those holding power.

Source details

Politics: A Treatise on Government, Book III, Chapter VI, William Ellis translation; represented through the 1912 Dent witness / Project Gutenberg #6762. Aristotle distinguishes governments ordered toward the common good from regimes serving rulers’ private advantage; the exact sentence falls before the edition’s Chapter VII heading and therefore belongs to Chapter VI.