Authors:

John Stuart Mill Quotes - Page 11

All Quotes Acting Age Assumption Atheism Authority Belief Character Children Choices Community Country Culture Democracy Desire Destiny Difficulty Diversity Duty Earth Economics Education Effort Evil Exercise Experience Feelings Freedom Freedom Of Speech Genius Giving Happiness Human Nature Independence Individuality Injustice Inspirational Justice Labor Language Liberty Life Logic Morality Motivational Nature Obedience Opportunity Originality Pain Perception Philosophy Pleasure Power Progress Purpose Religion Revolution Science Sleep Struggle Study Success Suffering Teaching Trade Training Truth Understanding Virtue War Wisdom
They who know how to employ opportunities will often find that they can create them; and what we can achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess than on the use we make of our time.

They who know how to employ opportunities will often find that they can create them; and what we can achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess than on the use we make of our time.

John Stuart Mill
Motivational, Time, Opportunity
John Stuart Mill (1867). “Inaugural Addresse, Delivered to the University of St. Andrews: Feb. 1st 1867”, p.47

On religion in particular the time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all who, being qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature consideration satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false but hurtful, to make their dissent known.

John Stuart Mill
Agnostic, Duty, Dissent
"Autobiography of John Stuart Mill".

If it were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a coordinate element with all that is designated by the terms civilisation, instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty should be undervalued.

John Stuart Mill
Individuality, Liberty, Essentials
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.57, Cambridge University Press

Instead of the function of governing, for which it is radically unfit, the proper office of a representative assembly is to watch and control the government.

John Stuart Mill
Government, Office, Watches
Considerations on Representative Government ch. 5 (1861)

The ne plus ultra of wickedness ... is embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity.

John Stuart Mill
Religious, Evil, Religion
"Autobiography John Stuart Mill: Top Biography".

The great creative individual . . . is capable of more wisdom and virtue than collective man ever can be.

John Stuart Mill
Inspirational, Wisdom, Men

If opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skillful devil's advocate can conjure up.

John Stuart Mill
Important, Devil, Opponents
Source: www.usconstitution.net

It is part of the irony of life that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible, are called forth in human beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that power.

John Stuart Mill
Crush, Gratitude, Feelings
John Stuart Mill (1970). “The Subjection of Women”, p.34, MIT Press

Truths are known to us in two ways: some are known directly, and of themselves; some through the medium of other truths. The former are the subject of Intuition, or Consciousness; the latter, of Inference; the latter of Inference. The truths known by Intuition are the original premisses, from which all others are inferred.

John Stuart Mill
Truth, Two, Intuition
John Stuart Mill (2006). “The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill”

The philosophy of reasoning, to be complete, ought to comprise the theory of bad as well as of good reasoning.

John Stuart Mill
Philosophy, Reason, Theory
John Stuart Mill (1856). “A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation”, p.448

The industrial economy which divides society absolutely into two portions, the payers of wages and the receivers of them, the first counted by thousands and the last by millions, is neither fit for, nor capable of, indefinite duration: and the possibility of changing this system for one of combination without dependence, and unity of interest instead of organized hostility, depends altogether upon the future developments of the Partnership principle.

John Stuart Mill
Wisdom, Two, Unity
John Stuart Mill (1848). “Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy”, p.466

Almost all rich veins of original and striking speculation have been opened by systematic half-thinkers.

John Stuart Mill
Intellectual, Intelligence, Veins
John Stuart Mill (2008). “Utilitarianism and On Liberty: Including 'Essay on Bentham' and Selections from the Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin”, p.67, John Wiley & Sons

And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.

John Stuart Mill
Police, Humanity, Liberty
John Stuart Mill (2012). “On Liberty”, p.71, Courier Corporation

Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments.

John Stuart Mill
Men, Want, Obedience
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.132, Cambridge University Press

To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality

John Stuart Mill
Philosophical, Perfection, Would Be
John Stuart Mill (1870). “Utilitarianism”, p.25

Any participation, even in the smallest public function, is useful.

John Stuart Mill
Government, Function, Participation
John Stuart Mill (2016). “Considerations on Representative Government”, p.94, John Stuart Mill

A [psychological] difficulty is not an impossibility.

John Stuart Mill
Psychological, Difficulty, Impossibility

It appears, then, to be a condition of a genuinely scientific hypothesis, that it be not destined always to remain an hypothesis, but be certain to be either proved or disproved by.. .comparison with observed facts.

John Stuart Mill
Science, Destiny, Facts
John Stuart Mill (1856). “A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation”, p.293

Belief, thus, in the supernatural, great as are the services which it rendered in the early stages of human development, cannot be considered to be any longer required, either for enabling us to know what is right and wrong in social morality, or for supplying us with motives to do right and to abstain from wrong.

John Stuart Mill
Atheism, Development, Enabling
John Stuart Mill (1874). “Nature, the Utility of Religion, and Theism. Being three Essays on Religion. With introductory notice by Helen Taylor”, p.100

He who cannot by his labor suffice for his own support has no claim to the privilege of helping himself to the money of others. By becoming dependent on the remaining members of the community for actual subsistence, he abdicates his claim to equal rights for them I other respects.

John Stuart Mill
Rights, Support, Community
John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.385, OUP Oxford

It can do truth no service to blind the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected the Christian faith.

John Stuart Mill
Christian, Teaching, Men

So much barbarism, however, still remains in the transactions of most civilized nations, that almost all independent countries choose to assert their nationality by having, to their inconvenience and that of their neighbors, a peculiar currency of their own.

John Stuart Mill
Country, Independent, Peculiar
John Stuart Mill (2016). “Principles of Political Economy: Mill's Works”, p.251, VM eBooks

What citizens of a free country would listen to any offers of good and skillful administration in return for the abdication of freedom?

John Stuart Mill
Country, Liberty, Citizens
John Stuart Mill (1870). “The Subjection of Women ... Third Edition”, p.180

There is no 'one-size-fits-all' way to build an audience.

John Stuart Mill
Book, Marketing, Way

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice - is often the means of their regeneration.

John Stuart Mill
War, Mean, Patriotic
John Stuart Mill (1867). “Thoughts on parliamentary reform. Recent writers on reform. Bain's psychology. A few words on non-intervention. The contest in America. Austin on jurisprudence. Plato”, p.204

You May Also Like: