Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
JOHN STUART MILLA man and still more the woman, who can be accused either of doing “what nobody does,” or of not doing “what everybody does,” is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency.
More John Stuart Mill Quotes
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Stupidity is much the same all the world over.
JOHN STUART MILL -
There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
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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 -
The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.
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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 -
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.
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In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.
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 -
The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Liberty consists in doing what one desires.
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In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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 -
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 -
The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.
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 -
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 -
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 -
When one’s ideas are not challenged, one’s ability to defend them weakens.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.
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 -
He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.
JOHN STUART MILL -
To understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman.
JOHN STUART MILL -
There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it.
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 -
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