John Stuart Mill Quotes
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Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.
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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.
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The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be booted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle.
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Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.
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The idea is essentially repulsive, of a society held together only by the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interest.
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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.
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Political Economy as a branch of science is extremely modern; but the subject with which its enquiries are conversant has in all ages necessarily constituted one of the chief practical interests of mankind.
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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.
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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.
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That a thing is peculiar; is no argument for its being blamable; since the most criminal actions are to a being like man not more unnatural than most of the virtues.
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Art is the employent of the powers of nature for an end.
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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.
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The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.
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A government with all this mass of favours to give or to withhold, however free in name, wields a power of bribery scarcely surpassed by an avowed autocracy, rendering it master of the elections in almost any circumstances but those of rare and extraordinary public excitement.
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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.
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A people may prefer a free government, but if by momentary discouragement or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or trust him with powers to subvert their institutions, in all these cases they are unfit for liberty.
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I conceive that the description so often given of a Benthamite, as a mere reasoning machine, though extremely inapplicable to most of those who have been designated by that title, was during two or three years of my life not altogether untrue of me.
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I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner.
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Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters.
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France has done more for even English history than England has.
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All errors which a man is likely to commit against advice are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him for his good.
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My father taught me that the question Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?
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All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
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In my education, as in that of everyone, the moral influences, which are so much more important than all others, are also the most complicated, and the most difficult to specify with any approach to completeness.