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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

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.
JOHN STUART MILL

Absence Action Happiness Pain Pleasure Proportion Reverse Right
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

Economy Income Industry Neighbor Save Tax
A man and still more the woman, who can be accused either of doing “what nobody does,” or of not doing “what everybody does,” is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency.
JOHN STUART MILL

Grave Man Moral Remark Woman
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
JOHN STUART MILL

Happiness Philosophy Question
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.
JOHN STUART MILL

Human Invention Light Question
Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.
JOHN STUART MILL

Genius Growth Minority Person Preserve Small
Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.
JOHN STUART MILL

Crime Necessary Offend Premium Punishment State
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
JOHN STUART MILL

Feeling Mindset Oneself Original
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
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
Liberty lies in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious.
JOHN STUART MILL

Finding Freedom Liberty Lying Right
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

Assumption Difference Greatness Opinion Purpose
All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
JOHN STUART MILL

Action Existence People Value
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
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.
JOHN STUART MILL

Freedom Government Harm Law Live Thinking
All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
JOHN STUART MILL

Existence Goodness Object Original Result

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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