John Stuart Mill - On Liberty (1859)

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Liberty consists in doing what one desires.

John Stuart Mill
The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

John Stuart Mill
The only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.

John Stuart Mill
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

John Stuart Mill
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.

John Stuart Mill
There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life.

John Stuart Mill
If any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

John Stuart Mill
The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief.

John Stuart Mill
In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others....

John Stuart Mill
A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.

John Stuart Mill
Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgement, which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility.

John Stuart Mill
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar; particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England

John Stuart Mill
There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.

John Stuart Mill
The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.

John Stuart Mill
And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.

John Stuart Mill
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. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

John Stuart Mill
That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

John Stuart Mill
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way.

John Stuart Mill
The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

John Stuart Mill
There ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.

John Stuart Mill
But these few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did not before exist, it is they who keep the life in those which already existed.

John Stuart Mill
The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

John Stuart Mill
Everything must be free to be written and published without restraint

John Stuart Mill
In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.

John Stuart Mill
The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.

John Stuart Mill
The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.

John Stuart Mill
The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

John Stuart Mill
Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

John Stuart Mill
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

John Stuart Mill
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.

John Stuart Mill