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 MILLThere is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
More John Stuart Mill Quotes
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In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.
JOHN STUART MILL -
All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
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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 MILL -
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.
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There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Stupidity is much the same all the world over.
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The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar; particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England
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All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
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.
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A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.
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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 -
To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.
JOHN STUART MILL -
I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.
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 -
When one’s ideas are not challenged, one’s ability to defend them weakens.
JOHN STUART MILL -
How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?
JOHN STUART MILL -
The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.
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