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 MILLHow can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?
More John Stuart Mill Quotes
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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 -
It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.
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The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.
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The moral influence of woman over man is almost always salutary.
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There is an imaginary circle drawn around every human being, over which no government should be able to step.
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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.
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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 -
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.
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A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
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We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.
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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 -
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 -
The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.
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With equality of experience and of general faculties, a woman usually sees much more than a man of what is immediately before her.
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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.
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He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.
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He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.
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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.
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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
JOHN STUART MILL -
There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
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Liberty consists in doing what one desires.
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Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
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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 -
No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is.
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The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.
JOHN STUART MILL -
In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
JOHN STUART MILL