Authors:

John Stuart Mill Quotes - Page 4

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
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

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.

John Stuart Mill
Government, Community, Majority
John Stuart Mill (1866). “Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy”, p.571

Co-operation, like other difficult things, can be learned only by practice: and to be capable of it in great things, a people must be gradually trained to it in small. Now the whole course of advancing civilization is a series of such training.

John Stuart Mill
Practice, Civilization, People
Sir John Bowring, John Stuart Mill (1836). “The London and Westminster Review”, p.5

My father taught me that the question Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?

John Stuart Mill
Father, Atheism, Taught

A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.

John Stuart Mill
Men, Profound, Feelings

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.

John Stuart Mill
Pigs, Different, Fool
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.102, Hackett Publishing

There is a tolerably general agreement about what a university is not. It is not a place of professional education.

John Stuart Mill
Agreement, University
John Stuart Mill (1867). “Inaugural Addresse, Delivered to the University of St. Andrews: Feb. 1st 1867”, p.4

A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs.

John Stuart Mill
Acting, Likes, Affair
John Stuart Mill (1869). “On Liberty”, p.187

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

John Stuart Mill
Freedom, People, Liberty
John Stuart Mill (1865). “On Liberty”, p.41

... what is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill, is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing.

John Stuart Mill
Real, Character, Doctrine
John Stuart Mill (2015). “Autobiography John Stuart Mill: Top Biography”, p.77, 谷月社

The idea that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods, which most experience refutes. History is teeming with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries.

John Stuart Mill
Truth, Ideas, Forever

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
Philosophy, Thinking, Errors
John Stuart Mill (1859). “On Liberty”, p.62

Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.

John Stuart Mill
Pain, Pleasure, Ends
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.99, Hackett Publishing

Judgement is given to men that they may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to use it at all?

John Stuart Mill
Men, Use, May
John Stuart Mill (2008). “On Liberty and Utilitarianism”, p.25, Bantam Classics

the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.

John Stuart Mill
Wise, Character, Men
John Stuart Mill (1865). “On Liberty”, p.12

Since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

John Stuart Mill
Healing, Chance, Opinion
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.53, Cambridge University Press

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

John Stuart Mill
Choices, Doe, Customs
John Stuart Mill (1859). “On Liberty”, p.105

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

John Stuart Mill
Courage, Vigor, Genius
John Stuart Mill (2012). “On Liberty”, p.56, Courier Corporation

All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.

John Stuart Mill
Law, People, Enforcement
John Stuart Mill (1864). “On Liberty”, p.14

So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it.

John Stuart Mill
Long, Feelings, Weight
John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill (2015). “Essays on Sex Equality”, p.126, University of Chicago Press

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.

John Stuart Mill
Mind, Fixed, Objects
John Stuart Mill (2013). “Autobiography”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

Lord, enlighten thou our enemies. Sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers: we are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength.

John Stuart Mill
Giving, Perception, Enemy
John Stuart Mill (1864). “Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical”, p.77

The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.

John Stuart Mill
Courage, Sacrifice, Intellectual
John Stuart Mill (1859). “On Liberty”, p.60

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
Opportunity, Differences, Purpose
Source: www.usconstitution.net

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar; particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England

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

Art is the employent of the powers of nature for an end.

John Stuart Mill
Art, Ends, Art Is
John Stuart Mill (1874). “Three Essays on Religion”, p.7, New York : H. Holt

You May Also Like: