John Stuart Mill Quotes
Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.
All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
My father taught me that the question Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?
It is historically true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honor.
Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with which he is not familiar.
Whatever helps to shape the human being - to make the individual what he is, or hinder him from being what he is not - is part of his education.
A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another, and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government.
In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.
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.
Strong impulses are but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and impassive one.
The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be booted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle.
Men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread.
I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a creature can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go .
Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.
Almost all rich veins of original and striking speculation have been opened by systematic half-thinkers.
To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality
Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
The study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.
In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. . . .
A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.
The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.
All errors which a man is likely to commit against advice are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him for his good.
Every one is degraded, whether aware of it or not, when other people, without consulting him, take upon themselves unlimited power to regulate his destiny.
The philosophy of reasoning, to be complete, ought to comprise the theory of bad as well as of good reasoning.
if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
The most important thing women have to do is to stir up the zeal of women themselves.
They who know how to employ opportunities will often find that they can create them; and what we can achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess than on the use we make of our time.
If opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skillful devil's advocate can conjure up.
Miracles have no claim whatever to the character of historical facts and are wholly invalid as evidence of any revelation.
All action is for the sake of some end; and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and color from the end to which they are subservient.
So natural to mankind is intolerance ... that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized.
In its narrowest acceptation, order means obedience. A government is said to preserve order if it succeeds in getting itself obeyed.
My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching but...precede it.
Every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended.
There are no means of finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying - and no means by which anyone else can discover for them what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone
The test of real and vigorous thinking, the thinking which ascertains truths instead of dreaming dreams, is successful application to practice.
Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.
Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon as there is no enemy in the field.
Human beings are no longer born to their place in life...but are free to employ their faculties and such favorable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them as desirable.
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 from thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.
Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of the representative government, cannot exist.
The great majority of those who speak of perfectibility as a dream, do so because they feel that it is one which would afford them no pleasure if it were realized.
