“No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.”
Pt. IV, Ch. 30 : General Considerations
Social Statics (1851)
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Herbert Spencer 81
English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent … 1820–1903Related quotes
“We can drink till all look blue.”
Act IV, sc. ii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)
“No one knows what he can do till he tries.”
Maxim 786
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 468.

Letter to Leonard Woolf (28 March 1941), from The Virginia Woolf Reader (1984) edited by Mitchell A. Leaska, p. 369, ISBN 0156935902

Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983)
Context: I asked the headmaster of literature, "Why are there so many headmasters and so few poets? Is it easier for you to train your own kind than ours?" He said, "No. The emperor needs all the headmasters he can get. If a quarter of his people were headmasters he would be perfectly happy. But more than two poets would tear his kingdom apart."
"Five Letters from an Eastern Empire", p. 88.