John Stuart Mill Quotes

253 quotes in 2870 categories

• War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing…
• One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.
• A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable…
• 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…
• A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to…
• Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.
• I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
• There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
• The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to…
• If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had…
• The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.
• Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
• A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.
• All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
• In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
• What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.
• I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.
• That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
• 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…
• The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

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