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 MILLA 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.
More John Stuart Mill Quotes
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There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.
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 -
Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.
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 -
I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
JOHN STUART MILL -
All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
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 -
A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Language is the light of the mind.
JOHN STUART MILL -
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 -
The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.
JOHN STUART MILL -
The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.
JOHN STUART MILL -
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
JOHN STUART MILL