Quotes from John Stuart Mill

Art is the employent of the powers of nature for an end.

Eloquence is heard; poetry is overheard ... All poetry is of the nature of the soliloquy.

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 bad workmen who form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry are decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as good.

Mechanizing man's work had changed but not lighted his toil.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

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

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.

Trade is a social act.

He who saves a fellow-creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble; he who betrays the friend that trusts him, is guilty of a crime, even if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is under greater obligations.

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.

Liberty consists in doing what one desires.

The sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.

Every one is degraded, whether aware of it or not, when other people, without consulting him, take upon themselves unlimited power to regulate his destiny.

The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.

There is a tolerably general agreement about what a university is not. It is not a place of professional education.

Whatever helps to shape the human being - to make the individual what he is, or hinder him from being what he is not - is part of his education.

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

I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are made.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

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.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary 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.