Famous John Stuart Mill Quotations

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"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. The person 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."
by John Stuart Mill
"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
by John Stuart Mill
"That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next."
by John Stuart Mill
"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 a sufficient warrant."
by John Stuart Mill
"A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."
by John Stuart Mill
"All good things which exist are the fruits of originality."
by John Stuart Mill
"Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so."
by John Stuart Mill
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
by John Stuart Mill
"Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit."
by John Stuart Mill
"He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision."
by John Stuart Mill
"If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind."
by John Stuart Mill
"Indeed the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into common places, but which all experience refutes."
by John Stuart Mill
"No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. 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."
by John Stuart Mill
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests."
by John Stuart Mill
"Over one mind and over ones body the individual is sovereign."
by John Stuart Mill
"Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth."
by John Stuart Mill
"Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character and 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 could ill do without."
by John Stuart Mill
"That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of our time."
by John Stuart Mill
"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest."
by John Stuart Mill
"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."
by John Stuart Mill
"The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do."
by John Stuart Mill
"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 at something else, they find happiness by the way."
by John Stuart Mill
"'Every great movement must experience three states: ridicule, discussion, adoption.'"
by John Stuart Mill
"It often happens that the universal belief of one age a belief from which no one was free or could be free without an extraordinary effort of genius or courage, becomes to a subsequent age, so palpable an absurdity that the only difficulty is to imagine how such an idea could ever have appeared credible.'"
by John Stuart Mill
"The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind - the animals."
by John Stuart Mill
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests."
by John Stuart Mill
"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."
by John Stuart Mill
"What a country wants to make it richer is never consumption, but production. Where there is the latter, we may be sure that there is no want of the former. To produce, implies that the producer de_sires to consume; why else should he give himself useless labor? He may not wish to consume what he himself produces, but his motive for producing and selling is the desire to buy. Therefore, if the producers generally produce and sell more and more, they certainly also buy more and more."
by John Stuart Mill
"The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement."
by John Stuart Mill
"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."
by John Stuart Mill
"Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained."
by John Stuart Mill
"The opening of a foreign trade, by making them acquainted with new objects, or tempting them by the easier acquisition of things which they had not previously thought attainable, sometimes works a sort of industrial revolution in a country whose resources were previously undeveloped for want of energy and ambition in the people: inducing those who were satisfied with scanty comforts and little work, to work harder for the gratification of their new tastes, and even to save, and accumulate capital, for the still more complete satisfaction of those tastes at a future time."
by John Stuart Mill
"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that."
by John Stuart Mill
"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table David Hume could out consume Schopenhauer and Hegel And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'Bout the raising of the wrist Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed John Stuart Mill, of his own free will On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill Plato they say, could stick it away Half a crate of whiskey every day Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle Hobbes was fond of his dram And Rene' Descartes was a drunken fart 'I drink, therefore I am' Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed A lovely little thinker But a bugger when he's pissed"
by Monty Python, Philosophers' Song
"The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it -- a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes -- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished."
by John Stuart Mill
"The most important thing women have to do is to stir up the zeal of women themselves."
by John Stuart Mill
"Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house."
by John Stuart Mill


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