John Stuart Mill Quotes

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It appears, then, to be a condition of a genuinely scientific hypothesis, that it be not destined always to remain an hypothesis, but be certain to be either proved or disproved by...comparison with observed facts.

John Stuart Mill
A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do never does all he can.

John Stuart Mill
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

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

John Stuart Mill
It might be plausibly maintained, that in almost every one of the leading controversies, past or present, in social philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though wrong in what they denied.

John Stuart Mill
There is the greatest difference between presuming 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.

John Stuart Mill
The philosophy of reasoning, to be complete, ought to comprise the theory of bad as well as of good reasoning.

John Stuart Mill
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.

John Stuart Mill
Seeming contentment is real discontent, combined with indolence or self-indulgence, which, while taking no legitimate means of raising itself, delights in bringing others down to its own level.

John Stuart Mill
All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience.

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

John Stuart Mill
A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.

John Stuart Mill
The English, of all ranks and classes, are at bottom, in all their feelings, aristocrats. They have some concept of liberty, and set some value on it, but the very idea of equality is strange and offensive to them. They do not dislike to have many people above them as long as they have some below them.

John Stuart Mill
The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.

John Stuart Mill
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.

John Stuart Mill
Mankind in all ages have had a strong propensity to conclude that wherever there is a name, there must be a distinguishable separate entity corresponding to the name.

John Stuart Mill
We have hitherto considered only two possibilities: that the received opinion may be false, and some other opinion, consequently, true; or that, the received opinion being true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear apprehension and deep feeling of its truth. But there is a commoner case than either of these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of being one true and the other false, share the truth between them.

John Stuart Mill
A fundamental error is seldom expelled from philosophy by a single victory. It retreats slowly, defends every inch of ground, and often retains a footing in some remote fastness after it has been driven from the open country.

John Stuart Mill
All free communities have both been more exempt from social injustice and crime, and have attained more brilliant prosperity, than any others, or than they themselves after they have lost their freedom.

John Stuart Mill
All acts suppose certain dispositions, and habits of mind and heart, which may be in themselves states of enjoyment or of wretchedness, and which must be fruitful in other consequences besides those particular acts.

John Stuart Mill
Human existence is girt round with mystery: the narrow region of our experience is a small island in the midst of a boundless sea. To add to the mystery, the domain of our earthly existence is not only an island of infinite space, but also in infinite time. The past and the future are alike shrouded from us: we neither know the origin of anything which is, nor its final destination.

John Stuart Mill
There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.

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

John Stuart Mill
The character of necessity ascribed to the truths of mathematics and even the peculiar certainty attributed to them is an illusion.

John Stuart Mill
The truth that every fact which has a beginning has a cause, is coextensive with human experience.

John Stuart Mill
Miracles have no claim whatever to the character of historical facts and are wholly invalid as evidence of any revelation.

John Stuart Mill
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.

John Stuart Mill
A stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There could be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress.

John Stuart Mill
The successful conduct of an industrial enterprise requires two quite distinct qualifications: fidelity and zeal.

John Stuart Mill
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.

John Stuart Mill