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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.

John Stuart Mill

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
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
JOHN STUART MILL

Bad End Goodness Man
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.
JOHN STUART MILL

Act Exercise Ourselves Right Way
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
JOHN STUART MILL

History Liberty Portion Poverty Struggle
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
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
The study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.
JOHN STUART MILL

Expression Literature Science Study Teaching Thinking Young
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
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.
JOHN STUART MILL

Better Different Fools Human Opinion Question Satisfaction
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
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
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

Errors Opinion Preparation Suffering Thinking Truth
Liberty consists in doing what one desires.
JOHN STUART MILL

Desire Liberty Oneself
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

Moral State Ugly War Worst
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

Ambition Creation Democracy Desire Domination Grade Institution Politics Society Spirit

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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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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Popular Authors

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