John Stuart Mill Quotes (79 Quotes)


    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.

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

    Every great movement must experience three stages ridicule, discussion, adoption.

    The duty of man is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of all other things, namely not to follow it but to amend it.

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


    The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race posterity as well as the existing generation those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

    What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.

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

    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.

    The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses.

    Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

    Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments.

    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.

    Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.

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

    One person with a belief is a social power equal to 99 who have only interests.

    Induction is a process of inference it proceeds from the known to the unknown.

    The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection.


    There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.

    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.

    As often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions.

    Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognizing the relations they find already existing between individuals.

    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.

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

    Originality is the one thing unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

    We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.

    The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.

    The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.


    Related Authors


    Karl Marx - John Stuart Mill - Albert Camus - Thomas Carlyle - Protagoras - Mohammad Khatami - Michel de Montaigne - Ludwig Wittgenstein - Diogenes - Baruch Spinoza


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