Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.
JOHN STUART MILLThe only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.
More John Stuart Mill Quotes
-
-
The object of universities is not to make skillful lawyers, physicians or engineers. It is to make capable and cultivated human beings.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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 to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
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 -
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
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 -
However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.
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 -
To understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman.
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 thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
JOHN STUART MILL -
A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.
JOHN STUART MILL -
All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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 because it is the custom, makes no choice.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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 creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.
JOHN STUART MILL -
A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.
JOHN STUART MILL