John Stuart Mill Quotes

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors.

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

Liberty lies in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious.

The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.

A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?

The object of universities is not to make skillful lawyers, physicians or engineers. It is to make capable and cultivated human beings

The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.

When the land is cultivated entirely by the spade and no horses are kept, a cow is kept for every three acres of land.

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.

Liberty consists in doing what one desires.

In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.

When one's ideas are not challenged, one's ability to defend them weakens.

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

The moral influence of woman over man is almost always salutary.

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.

That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.

The ne plus ultra of wickedness ... is embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity.

He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.

The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete sceptics in religion.

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.

... the besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking a part of the truth for the whole.

The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind - the lower animals.

Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.