Quotes by Mill, John Stuart

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary 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."

Mill, John Stuart on dissent
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"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time."

Mill, John Stuart on eccentricity
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"Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained."

Mill, John Stuart on eccentricity
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"There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it."

Mill, John Stuart on excellence   

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

Mill, John Stuart on experience   

"The most important thing women have to do is to stir up the zeal of women themselves."

Mill, John Stuart on feminism
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"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."

Mill, John Stuart on freedom   

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

Mill, John Stuart on happiness   

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

Mill, John Stuart on happiness   

"But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal Impulses and preferences."

Mill, John Stuart on individuality   

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

Mill, John Stuart on individuality
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"What ever crushes individuality is despotism, no matter what name it is called."

Mill, John Stuart on individuality   

"As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."

Mill, John Stuart on justice   

"A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself."

Mill, John Stuart on insecurity   

"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that."

Mill, John Stuart on knowledge
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"All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people."

Mill, John Stuart on law and lawyers   

"The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses."

Mill, John Stuart on masses   

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

Mill, John Stuart on mediocrity   

"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

Mill, John Stuart on opinions   

"All good things which exist are the fruits of originality."

Mill, John Stuart on originality   

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

Mill, John Stuart on originality
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"A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life."

Mill, John Stuart on politics   

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

Mill, John Stuart on repression
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"The duty of man is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of all other things, namely not to follow it but to amend it."

Mill, John Stuart on self-respect   

"The worth of a 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."

Mill, John Stuart on state   

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

Mill, John Stuart on belief
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"The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine."

Mill, John Stuart on bureaucracy   

"As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another."

Mill, John Stuart on charity   

"The idea that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods, which most experience refutes. History is teeming with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries."

Mill, John Stuart on truth   

"To understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman."

Mill, John Stuart on understanding
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"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice -- is often the means of their regeneration."

Mill, John Stuart on war
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"That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next."

Mill, John Stuart on wisdom
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"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."

Mill, John Stuart on conservatives
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"Though the practice of chivalry fell even more sadly short of its theoretic standard than practice generally falls below theory, it remains one of the most precious monuments of the moral history of our race, as a remarkable instance of a concerted and organized attempt by a most disorganized and distracted society, to raise up and carry into practice a moral ideal greatly in advance of its social condition and institutions; so much so as to have been completely frustrated in the main object, yet never entirely inefficacious, and which has left a most sensible, and for the most part a highly valuable impress on the ideas and feelings of all subsequent times."

Mill, John Stuart on courage   

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

Mill, John Stuart on custom   

"When the people are too much attached to savage independence, to be tolerant of the amount of power to which it is for their good that they should be subject, the state of society is not yet ripe for representative government. "

Mill, John Stuart on uncategorised   

"Thus, a people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it. "

Mill, John Stuart on uncategorised   

"There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism. "

Mill, John Stuart on uncategorised   

"The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence, is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. "

Mill, John Stuart on uncategorised   

"The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishment, if society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its protection. "

Mill, John Stuart on uncategorised