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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

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
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
Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.
JOHN STUART MILL

Experience Flavor Life Risk Shelter
Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.
JOHN STUART MILL

Crime Necessary Offend Premium Punishment State
There is an imaginary circle drawn around every human being, over which no government should be able to step.
JOHN STUART MILL

Circle Government Imagination Step
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

Community Government Interesting Reason Worst
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
JOHN STUART MILL

Conscience Form Goodness Harm Man Oneself
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 power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
JOHN STUART MILL

Kind Man Oneself Opinion Power Silence
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

Adverse Chance Opinion Subject Supply Truth
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

Better Fight Himself Man Misery Willing
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

Genius Growth Minority Person Preserve Small
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
In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
JOHN STUART MILL

Affirmation Correct Debate Intellectual Wrong
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 MILL

Certain Discussion Fake Opinion Refuse Silence
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

Force Improvement Liberty People Spirit Willing
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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