Quotes from John Stuart Mill

Onde a norma de conduta não é o próprio carácter, mas as tradições e costumes alheios, falta um dos principais ingredientes da felicidade humana e, de modo completo, o principal ingrediente do progresso individual e social.

Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters: and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary.

Nothing is more natural to human beings, nor, up to a certain point in cultivation, more universal, than to estimate the pleasures and pains of others as deserving of regard exactly in proportion to their likeness to ourselves.

É melhor ser Sócrates insatisfeito do que um porco satisfeito; é melhor ser Sócrates insatisfeito que um imbecil satisfeito. E, se o imbecil ou o porco são de opinião diferente, é que só conhecem um lado da questão: o deles. A outra parte, para fazer a comparação, conhece os dois lados.

To say that one person's desires and feelings are stronger and more various than those of another, is merely to say that he has more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable, perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good.

The present system is not, as many Socialists believe, hurrying us into a state of general indigence and slavery from which only Socialism can save us

There are no means of finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying — and no means by which anyone else can discover for them what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone.

Our moral faculty, according to all those of its interpreters who are entitled to the name of thinkers, supplies us only with the general principles of moral judgements; it is a branch of our reason, not of our sensitive faculty; and must be looked to for the abstract doctrines of morality, not for perception of it in the concrete.

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

Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. -The Subjection of Women

The "people" who exercise the power, are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the "self-government" spoken of, is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest.

all the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but their affections. - The Subjection of Women

La diferencia puede atraer, pero lo que retiene es la semejanza; y los individuos pueden darse recíprocamente felicidad según sean más o menos semejantes entre sí.

But this dependence, as it exists at present, is not an original institution, taking a fresh start from considerations of justice and social expediency—it is the primitive state of slavery lasting on, through successive mitigations and modifications occasioned by the same causes which have softened the general manners, and brought all human relations more under the control of justice and the influence of humanity.

All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.

There is the greatest difference between assuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.

Aquellos que tienen asegurado el sustento y que no desean favores de los hombres que están en el Poder, ni de ninguna corporación o del público, nada tienen que temer de la franca profesión de todas las opiniones, a no ser que se piense o se hable mal de ellos

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. The latter case, it is true, requires a much more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception.

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.

Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future.

NOT THE VIOLENT CONFLICT BETWEEN PARTS OF THE TRUTH, BUT THE QUIET SUPPRESSION OF HALF OF IT, IS THE FORMIDABLE EVIL; THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE WHEN PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO LISTEN TO BOTH SIDES; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.

For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable.

definiteness and precision: details were not to be encountered with generalities, but with details. Nor could any progress be made, on such a subject, by merely showing that existing things were bad; it was necessary also to show how they might be made better. No great man whom we read of was qualified to do this thing except Bentham. He has done it, once and for everp .

Nadie puede ser un gran pensador sin reconocer que su primer deber como tal consiste en seguir a su inteligencia cualesquiera que sean las conclusiones a que se vea conducido.