The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.
JOHN STUART MILLAlthough it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
More John Stuart Mill Quotes
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In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
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To mistake money for wealth, is the same sort of error as to mistake the highway which may be the easiest way of getting to your house or lands, for the house and lands themselves.
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How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?
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Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.
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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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It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.
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When one’s ideas are not challenged, one’s ability to defend them weakens.
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Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.
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It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.
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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.
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The study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.
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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.
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A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes–will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
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The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.
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Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
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So Long as we do not harm others we should be free to think, speak, act, & live as we see fit, without molestation from individuals, law, or gov’t.
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Language is the light of the mind.
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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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The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.
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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.
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Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.
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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.
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Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.
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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.
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One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.
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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