John Stuart Mill Quotes

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John Stuart Mill

Profession : Philosopher

Birth : May 20, 1806

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

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.

John Stuart Mill

The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

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.

John Stuart Mill

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.

John Stuart Mill

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

John Stuart Mill

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

John Stuart Mill

Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.

John Stuart Mill

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

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.

John Stuart Mill

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.

John Stuart Mill

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

John Stuart Mill

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

John Stuart Mill

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

John Stuart Mill

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

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.

John Stuart Mill

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

John Stuart Mill

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

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

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.

John Stuart Mill