Authors:

John Stuart Mill Quotes - Page 12

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
...it is not only the general principles of justice that are infringed, or at least set aside, by the exclusion of women, merely as women, from any share in the representation; that exclusion is also repugnant to the

...it is not only the general principles of justice that are infringed, or at least set aside, by the exclusion of women, merely as women, from any share in the representation; that exclusion is also repugnant to the particular principles of the British Constitution. It violates one of the oldest of our constitutional maxims...that taxation and representation should be co-extensive. Do not women pay taxes?

John Stuart Mill
Justice, Words Of Wisdom, Principles
John Stuart Mill (1867). “Speech of John Stuart Mill, M.P., on the Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise: Spoken in the House of Commons, May 20th, 1867”, p.5

The majority, being satisfied with the ways of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are), cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think would be best for mankind.

John Stuart Mill
Acceptance, Thinking, Atheism
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.101, Cambridge University Press

The bad workmen who form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry are decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as good.

John Stuart Mill
Work, Wages, Branches
John Stuart Mill (2016). “On Liberty: Mill's Works”, p.100, VM eBooks

The prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hinderances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement.

John Stuart Mill
Sex, Block, Character
John Stuart Mill (2009). “Autobiography of John Stuart Mill”, p.270, The Floating Press

Seeming contentment is real discontent, combined with indolence or self-indulgence, which, while taking no legitimate means of raising itself, delights in bringing others down to its own level.

John Stuart Mill
Real, Mean, Self
John Stuart Mill (2016). “Considerations on Representative Government”, p.86, John Stuart Mill

Any society which is not improving is deteriorating, and the more so the closer and more familiar it is. Even a really superior man almost always begins to deteriorate when he is habitually king of his company.

John Stuart Mill
Kings, Men, Progress
John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.499, Oxford University Press, USA

Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.

John Stuart Mill
Two, Giving, Feelings
John Stuart Mill (2008). “Utilitarianism and On Liberty: Including 'Essay on Bentham' and Selections from the Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin”, p.187, John Wiley & Sons

The triumph of the Confederacy... would be a victory for the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the sprits of its friends all over the civilized world... [The American Civil War] is destined to be a turning point, for good or evil, of the course of human affairs.

John Stuart Mill
War, Enemy Of Progress, History

So true is that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural.

John Stuart Mill
Mean, Usual, Natural
John Stuart Mill (1870). “The Subjection of Women”, p.22, Hayes Barton Press

The cause, then, philosophically speaking, is the sum total of the conditions, positive and negative, taken together; the whole of the contingencies of every description, which being realized, the consequent invariably follows.

John Stuart Mill
Taken, Science, Being Real
John Stuart Mill (1858). “A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation”, p.200

The doctrine called Philosophical Necessity is simply this: that, given the motives which are present to an individual's mind, and given likewise the character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will act might be unerringly inferred: that if we knew the person thoroughly, and knew all the inducements which are acting upon him, we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict any physical event.

John Stuart Mill
Philosophical, Character, Science
John Stuart Mill (2016). “A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive: Mill's Works”, p.852, VM eBooks

Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting, the first in importance surely is man himself.

John Stuart Mill
Men, Firsts, Life Is
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.196, Hackett Publishing

A population may be too crowded, though all be amply supplied with food and raiment. It is not good for a man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species.

John Stuart Mill
Men, Population, May
John Stuart Mill (1849). “Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy”, p.313

Human beings are not like sheep; and even sheep are not undistinguishably alike. A man cannot get a coat or a pair oboots to fit him, unless they are either made to his measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in the shape of their feet? If it were only that people have diversities of taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model.

John Stuart Mill
Spiritual, Men, Sheep
John Stuart Mill “Annotated On Liberty with English Grammar Exercises: by John Stuart Mill (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, Powell Publications, LLC

It is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.

John Stuart Mill
Age, Opinion, Certain
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.164, Hackett Publishing

All free communities have both been more exempt from social injustice and crime, and have attained more brilliant prosperity, than any others, or than they themselves after they have lost their freedom.

John Stuart Mill
Community, Brilliant, Injustice
John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.217, OUP Oxford

Was there ever any domination that did not appear natural to those who possessed it?

John Stuart Mill
Natural, Domination, Possessed

The guesses which serve to give mental unity and wholeness to a chaos of scattered particulars, are accidents which rarely occur to any minds but those abounding in knowledge and disciplined in intellectual combinations.

John Stuart Mill
Discipline, Giving, Intellectual
John Stuart Mill (1911). “A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive (Complete)”, p.347, Library of Alexandria

We have hitherto considered only two possibilities: that the received opinion may be false, and some other opinion, consequently, true; or that, the received opinion being true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear apprehension and deep feeling of its truth. But there is a commoner case than either of these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of being one true and the other false, share the truth between them.

John Stuart Mill
Opposites, Two, Errors
Source: www.usconstitution.net

In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them ages of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either of the one slavery or of the other.

John Stuart Mill
Sex, Age, Slavery
John Stuart Mill (2016). “The Subjection of Women: Mill's Works”, p.5, VM eBooks

A person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse.

John Stuart Mill
Peculiar, Taste, Purses
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.216, Hackett Publishing

I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are made.

John Stuart Mill
Mind, May, Opinion
John Stuart Mill, John M. Robson (1965). “Collected Works: Principles of political economy with some of their applications to social philosophy : books 3-5 and appendices”

In the human mind, one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while another rises.

John Stuart Mill
Mind, Revolution, Opinion
John Stuart Mill (1867). “On Liberty by John Stuart Mill”, p.27

Experience has taught me that those who give their time to the absorbing claims of what is called society, not having leisure to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, remain much more ignorant of the general state either of the public mind, or of the active and instructed part of it, than a recluse who reads the newspapers need be.

John Stuart Mill
Giving, Ignorant, Mind
John Stuart Mill (2015). “Autobiography John Stuart Mill: Top Biography”, p.118, 谷月社

If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a happier or a better population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.

John Stuart Mill
Long, Support, Earth
John Stuart Mill (1848). “Principles of political economy with some of their applications to social philosophy”, p.317

You May Also Like: