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John Stuart Mill Quotes - Page 6

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He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.

He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.

John Stuart Mill
Needs, World, Apes

The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; type people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power.

John Stuart Mill
Mean, Numbers, People

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

John Stuart Mill
Gymnastics, Justice, Diversity
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.196, Hackett Publishing

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.

John Stuart Mill
Advancement, Standing Alone, Despotism
John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.70, Cambridge University Press

Photography is a brief complicity between foresight and luck.

John Stuart Mill
Photography, Luck, Foresight

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

John Stuart Mill
Accountability, Action, Individual
On Liberty ch. 5 (1859)

The application of algebra to geometry ... has immortalized the name of Descartes, and constitutes the greatest single step ever made in the progress of the exact sciences.

John Stuart Mill
Science, Names, Progress
John Stuart Mill (1865). “An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and of the Principal Philosophical Questions Discussed in His Writings”, p.531

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
May, Chance, Economics

The legal subordination of one sex to another - is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

John Stuart Mill
Sex, Perfect, Sides
John Stuart Mill (2017). “JOHN STUART MILL - Ultimate Collection: Works on Philosophy, Politics & Economy (Including Memoirs & Essays): Autobiography, Utilitarianism, The Subjection of Women, On Liberty, Principles of Political Economy, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive and More”, p.71, Madison & Adams

It would not be easy even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.

John Stuart Mill
Christ, Virtue, Easy
John Stuart Mill (1874). “Three Essays on Religion”, p.255, New York : H. Holt

Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.

John Stuart Mill
Truth, Halloween, Opinion
John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.45, OUP Oxford

A being who can create a race of men devoid of real freedom and inevitably foredoomed to be sinners, and then punish them for being what he has made them, may be omnipotent and various other things, but he is not what the English language has always intended by the adjective holy.

John Stuart Mill
God, Religious, Real

The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.

John Stuart Mill
Truth, Honesty, Men
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.172, Hackett Publishing

But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal Impulses and preferences.

John Stuart Mill
Individuality, Excess, Individualism
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.197, Hackett Publishing

Strange it is that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free speech but object to their being "pushed to an extreme," not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case.

John Stuart Mill
Men, Freedom Of Speech, Strange
"On Liberty". Book by John Stuart Mill, 1859.

All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is their nature to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections.

John Stuart Mill
Character, Men, Self
John Stuart Mill (1870). “The Subjection of Women”, p.27, Hayes Barton Press

All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.

John Stuart Mill
Political Revolution, Moral, Opinion
John Stuart Mill (2009). “Dissertations and Discussions”, p.56, Cosimo, Inc.

Education makes a man a more intelligent shoemaker, if that be his occupation, but not by teaching him how to make shoes; it does so by the mental exercise it gives, and the habits it impresses.

John Stuart Mill
Teaching, Exercise, Men
John Stuart Mill (1867). “Inaugural Addresse, Delivered to the University of St. Andrews: Feb. 1st 1867”, p.5

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

John Stuart Mill
Evil, Liberty, Would Be
On Liberty ch. 2 (1859)

The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.

John Stuart Mill
Men, Principles, Opinion
John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.260, OUP Oxford

The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete sceptics in religion.

John Stuart Mill
Religion, Ornaments, Would Be
John Stuart Mill (2015). “Autobiography John Stuart Mill: Top Biography”, p.20, 谷月社

[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
Men, Doe, Moral
John Stuart Mill (2010). “The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill: On Liberty, The Subjection of Women and Utilitarianism”, p.70, Modern Library

Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.

John Stuart Mill
Selfishness, Want, Next
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.105, Hackett Publishing

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
Pain, Action, Absence
John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.99, 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.

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

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