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John Stuart Mill Quotes about War

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The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

John Stuart Mill
War, Power, Libertarian Party
On Liberty ch. 1 (1859)

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

John Stuart Mill
Military, War, Patriotic
"The Contest in America", Fraser's Magazine, February 1862.

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

John Stuart Mill
Freedom, War, Military

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

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

As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.

John Stuart Mill
War, Charity, Matter
John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill (2015). “Essays on Sex Equality”, p.227, University of Chicago Press

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