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 put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries.
JOHN STUART MILLThe general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.
More John Stuart Mill Quotes
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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 -
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
JOHN STUART MILL -
There is an imaginary circle drawn around every human being, over which no government should be able to step.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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 others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.
JOHN STUART MILL -
All ideas need to be heard, because each idea contains one aspect of the truth. By examining that aspect, we add to our own idea of the truth. Even ideas that have no truth in them whatsoever are useful because by disproving them, we add support to our own ideas.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.
JOHN STUART MILL -
As often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions.
JOHN STUART MILL -
There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.
JOHN STUART MILL -
A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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 to preserve the soil in which they grow.
JOHN STUART MILL -
All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
JOHN STUART MILL -
All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
JOHN STUART MILL