John Stuart Mill

Language is the light of the mind

— John Stuart Mill

Liberty consists in doing what one desires.

— John Stuart Mill

Trade is a social act.

— John Stuart Mill

A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.

— John Stuart Mill

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

— John Stuart Mill

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

— John Stuart Mill

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

— John Stuart Mill

The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

— John Stuart Mill

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

— John Stuart Mill

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

— John Stuart Mill

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

— John Stuart Mill

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

— John Stuart Mill

Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting, the first in importance surely is man himself.

— John Stuart Mill

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.

— John Stuart Mill

“But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?”

— John Stuart Mill

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which…

— John Stuart Mill

With equality of experience and of general faculties, a woman usually sees much more than a man of what is immediately before…

— John Stuart Mill

The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are seldom brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged…

— John Stuart Mill

Money is a machine for doing quickly and commodiously what would be done, though less quickly and commodiously, without it.

— John Stuart Mill

“It is an adherent condition of human affairs that no intention, however sincere, of protecting the interests of others can make it…

— John Stuart Mill

It's hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other…

— John Stuart Mill

The true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals; claiming nothing for themselves but what they as freely…

— John Stuart Mill

A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will…

— John Stuart Mill

There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it…

— John Stuart Mill

Co-operation, like other difficult things, can be learned only by practice: and to be capable of it in great things, a people…

— John Stuart Mill

In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many…

— John Stuart Mill

“It is true that a great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere…

— John Stuart Mill

“THE subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical…

— John Stuart Mill

“The peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one side. There are no objections, and…

— John Stuart Mill

Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled into them, have their mental capacities not strengthened, but overlaid by it.…

— John Stuart Mill

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which…

— John Stuart Mill

There is nothing which an untrained mind shows itself more hopelessly incapable, than in drawing the proper general conclusions from its own…

— John Stuart Mill

What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not…

— John Stuart Mill

Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all…

— John Stuart Mill

“Person of genus are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people - less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without harmful…

— John Stuart Mill

The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.

— John Stuart Mill

A person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse.

— John Stuart Mill

Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with which he is not familiar.

— John Stuart Mill

Truth emerges from the clash of adverse ideas.

— John Stuart Mill

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

— John Stuart Mill