"Conscience and, for that matter, law overlap parts of the sphere of social obligation about which I am speaking. A rule of conduct may, indeed, appear in more than one sphere, and may consequently have a twofold sanction. But the guide to which the citizen mostly looks is just the standard recognised by the community, a community made up mainly of those fellow-citizens whose good opinion he respects and desires to have. He has everywhere round him an object-lesson in the conduct of decent people towards each other and towards the community to which they belong. Without such conduct and the restraints which it imposes there could be no tolerable social life, and real freedom from interference would not be enjoyed. It is the instinctive sense of what to do and what not to do in daily life and behaviour that is the source of liberty and ease. And it is this instinctive sense of obligation that is the chief foundation of society. Its reality takes objective shape and displays itself in family life and in our other civic and social institutions"
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Liberal Party (UK) politiciansLawyers from ScotlandLabour Party (UK) politiciansPoliticians from ScotlandFellows of the British Academy
Original Language: English
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Haldane%2C_1st_Viscount_Haldane
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Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane
Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane KT OM PC FRS FSA FBA (30 July 1856 – 19 August 1928) was a British lawyer and philosopher and an influential Liberal and later Labour politician. He was Secretary of State for War between 1905 and 1912 during which time the "Haldane Reforms" of the British Army were implemented. As an intellectual he was fascinated with German thought. That led to his role in seeking detente with Germany in 1912 in the [[w:Haldane Mission|Haldane Mis
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