To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.
JOHN STUART MILLIn all the more advanced communities the great majority of things are worse done by the intervention of government than the individuals most interested in the matter would do them, or cause them to be done, if left to themselves.
More John Stuart Mill Quotes
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I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.
JOHN STUART MILL -
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.
JOHN STUART MILL -
I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The moral influence of woman over man is almost always salutary.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
JOHN STUART MILL -
We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.
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 her.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar; particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England
JOHN STUART MILL -
In all the more advanced communities the great majority of things are worse done by the intervention of government than the individuals most interested in the matter would do them, or cause them to be done, if left to themselves.
JOHN STUART MILL -
He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.
JOHN STUART MILL






