Authors:

John Stuart Mill Quotes - Page 2

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
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

John Stuart Mill
Men, Good Man, Apathy
"On Education" (1867)

Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.

John Stuart Mill
Atmosphere, Genius, Breathe
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.65, Cambridge University Press

The object of universities is not to make skillful lawyers, physicians or engineers. It is to make capable and cultivated human beings

John Stuart Mill
Physicians, Lawyer, University

Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend to only one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.

John Stuart Mill
Truth, Errors, People
John Stuart Mill (1864). “On Liberty”, p.94

...to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society

John Stuart Mill
Children, Mind, Training
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.233, Hackett Publishing

Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.

John Stuart Mill
Happiness, Art, Mean
John Stuart Mill (2017). “The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism, The Subjection of Women, On Liberty, Principles of Political Economy, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, Memoirs…”, p.3190, e-artnow

Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.

John Stuart Mill
Survival, Flavor, Certain

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
Order, Soil, Minorities
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.200, Hackett Publishing

The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

John Stuart Mill
Progress, Overcoming, Advancement

Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign.

John Stuart Mill
Freedom, Mind, Body

Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economising

John Stuart Mill
Sleep, Rich, Investing In Real Estate

Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.

John Stuart Mill
Nature, Science, Solitude
John Stuart Mill (1865). “Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy”, p.454

He who knows only his own side of the case (argument) knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion

John Stuart Mill
Opposites, Doe, May
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.38, Cambridge University Press

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.

John Stuart Mill
Inspirational, Men, Thinking

As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

John Stuart Mill
Fighting, Long, Justice
John Stuart Mill (2009). “The Contest in America”, p.35, Cosimo, Inc.

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

John Stuart Mill
Power, Government, Evil
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.110, Cambridge University Press

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
Men, Good Man, Needs
"On Education" (1867)

When one's ideas are not challenged, one's ability to defend them weakens.

John Stuart Mill
Ideas, Ability

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
Hearing, Opinion, Assuming
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.163, Hackett Publishing

‎A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.

John Stuart Mill
Education, Successful, Government
John Stuart Mill (1978). “On Liberty”, Penguin Books

Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.

John Stuart Mill
Mean, Practice, Ideas
John Stuart Mill (1864). “On Liberty”, p.13

Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.

John Stuart Mill
Inspirational, Adoption, Democracy

Education is one of the subjects which most essentially require to be considered by various minds, and from a variety of points of view. For, of all many-sided subjects, it is the one which has the greatest number of sides.

John Stuart Mill
Education, Science, Numbers

In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.

John Stuart Mill
Order, Break Through, People
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.67, Cambridge University Press

God is a word to express, not our ideas, but the want of them.

John Stuart Mill
Atheist, Ideas, Religion

You May Also Like: