John Stuart Mill Quotes

253 quotes in 2870 categories

• I have a hundred times heard him say, that all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in a constantly increasing progression; that…
• It is given to no human being to stereotype a set of truths, and walk safely by their guidance with his mind's eye closed.
• The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything…
• Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people - less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any…
• ...to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training…
• No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to…
• Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon as there is no enemy in the field.
• Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary…
• 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…
• In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny…
• So true is that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural.
• The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.
• Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
• God is a word to express, not our ideas, but the want of them.
• Is there any moral enormity which might not be justified by imitation of such a Deity?
• 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…
• Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement…
• We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it…
• Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
• The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable…

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