John Stuart Mill Quotes

The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.

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.

I believe in spectacles, but I think eyes necessary too.

Foresight of phenomenon and power over them depend on knowledge of their sequences, and not upon any notion we may have formed respecting their origin or inmost nature.

Command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life: society in equality is its normal state.

Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. -The Subjection of Women

One person with a belief is worth 99 people who have only interests.

The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.

Language is the light of the mind.

Have intercourse with females, acquire wealth.

The beliefs which we have the most warrant for have no safeguard, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.

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

He who let's the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation

[T]he source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being namely, that his errors are corrigible.

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

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.

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

His eminence was due to the flatness of the surrounding landscape.

He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice.

The despotism of custom is everywhere standing up to human advancement.

Unquestionably it is possible to do without happiness it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.

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

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

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

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.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.