Quotes from John Stuart Mill

Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one.

However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.

Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying.

But though direct moral teaching does much, indirect does more; and the effect my father produced on my character, did not depend solely on what he said or did with that direct object, but also, and still more, on what manner of man he was.

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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.

The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.

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

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality

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

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

Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action.

... the besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking a part of the truth for the whole.

In the human mind, one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while another rises.

Every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended.

Truth emerges from the clash of adverse ideas.

The peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical truths is that all the argument is on one side.

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

Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.

His eminence was due to the flatness of the surrounding landscape.

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

The despotism of custom is everywhere standing up to human advancement.

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you will cease to be so.