Quotes from John Stuart Mill

In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or even paid, to real or supposed mental superiority, the general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury.

man, and from self-interest in this world or in the next. There is a studied abstinence from any of the phrases which, in the mouths of others, import the acknowledgment of such a fact.* If we find the words "Conscience," "Principle," "Moral Rectitude," "Moral Duty," in his Table of the Springs of Action, it is among the synonymes of the "love of reputation;

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.

When, therefore, those feelings and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from the question of intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher faculties, is susceptible, they are entitled on this subject to the same regard.

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;

Estou convencido de que as relações sociais dos dois sexos, que subordinam um sexo a outro em nome da lei, são más em si mesmas e constituem um dos principais obstáculos que se opuseram ao progresso da humanidade; estou convencido de que devem ser substituídas por uma igualdade perfeita.

else desirable, he confounded all disinterested feelings which he found in himself, with the desire of ggeneralg happiness: just as some religious writers, who loved virtue for its own sake as much perhaps as men could do, habitually confounded their love of virtue with their fear of hell.

A utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever God has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals, must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree.

Ruler of the Universe; and the popular, which he characteristically calls also the moral sanction, operating through the pains and pleasures arising from the favour or disfavour of our fellow-creatures.[*]

In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life; until the one or the other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

or others, unless we take in, as part of the question, its influence on the regulation of our, or their, affections and desires?

it is owing to a quality of the human mind, the source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being, namely, that his errors are corrigible. He is capable of rectifying his mistakes by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone.

Questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. To be incapable of proof by reasoning is common to all first principles; to the first premises of our knowledge, as well as to those of our conduct.

He committed the mistake of supposing that the abusinessa part of human affairs was the whole of them; all at least that the legislator and the moralist had to do with. Not that he disregarded moral influences when he perceived them; but his want of imagination, small experience of human feelings, and ignorance of the filiation and connexion of feelings with one another, made this rarely the case.

only through diversity of opinion is there, in the existing state of human intellect, a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.

Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either.

Se c'è qualcuno che contesta un'opinione comunemente accettata, o che lo farebbe se solo la legge o l'opinione pubblica glielo consentissero, non abbiamo che da ringraziarlo, spalancare la nostra mente per ascoltarlo, rallegrarci che ci sia qualcuno pronto a fare per noi quel che ci costerebbe ben più fatica fare da soli, sempre che almeno un po' ci importi della certezza o della vitalità delle nostre convinzioni.

Marriage is the only form of slavery permitted by law.

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.

Whatever renders a larger capital necessary in any trade or business, limits the competition in that business.

Quem pode calcular o que se perde com a multidão de inteligências, a coexistirem com caracteres tímidos, que não se aventuram a incorporar-se em nenhuma corrente arrojada, vigorosa e independente de opinião, com o temor de que ela os leve a alguma coisa que possa ser taxada de irreligiosa ou imoral?

where to place the limit—how to make the fitting adjustment between individual independence and social control—is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done.