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The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

John Stuart Mill

He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.
JOHN STUART MILL

Choice Himself Imitation Planning World
There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.
JOHN STUART MILL

Assumption Difference Greatness Opinion Purpose
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

Absence Action Happiness Pain Pleasure Proportion Reverse Right
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 MILL

Development Force Human Live Machine Nature Requirement Tree
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.
JOHN STUART MILL

Human Invention Light Question
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
JOHN STUART MILL

Conservative People Stupidity True
All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
JOHN STUART MILL

Action Existence People Value
A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs.
JOHN STUART MILL

Affair Concern Freedom Himself Person
Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.
JOHN STUART MILL

Happiness Myself Object Thinking
He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.
JOHN STUART MILL

Choice Custom Himself
Human beings are no longer born to their place in life…but are free to employ their faculties and such favorable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them as desirable.
JOHN STUART MILL

Achievement Appearance Born Chance Desire Freedom Human Life Place
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 for its mind is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society.
JOHN STUART MILL

Children Crime Existence Instruction Mindset Prospect Society Training
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

Human Lawyer Object University
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

Aspect Examination Ideas Ourselves Support Truth
As often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions.
JOHN STUART MILL

Conclusion Cultivation Draw Narrow Study
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

Establishment Moral Opinion Politics Revolution

The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

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The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

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