100 Quotes by John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill, a British philosopher and political economist, is a central figure in the development of utilitarianism and modern liberal thought. Born in 1806, Mill's philosophical writings shaped ethical and political discourse, advocating for individual freedoms and societal progress. His seminal work "Utilitarianism" argued that the morality of actions should be judged by their utility in maximizing happiness. Mill's concept of the "harm principle" in his essay "On Liberty" furthered his commitment to personal freedom, asserting that the state should only intervene when actions harm others. His contributions extended to economics with "Principles of Political Economy," where he examined the relationship between capitalism, labor, and social welfare. Mill's ideas on women's rights, expressed in "The Subjection of Women," were groundbreaking in advocating for gender equality. His emphasis on intellectual freedom and open debate remains influential, shaping modern discussions on free speech and societal norms. Mill's legacy continues to impact fields as diverse as philosophy, ethics, politics, and economics, leaving a lasting imprint on the foundation of modern liberal democracies.
John Stuart Mill Quotes
It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. (Meaning)
All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. (Meaning)
All good things which exist are the fruits of originality. (Meaning)
Language is the light of the mind (Meaning)
Liberty consists in doing what one desires. (Meaning)
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.
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 sufficient warrant.
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
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.
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.
To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors.
To bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.
Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
Liberty lies in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious.
The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.
He who knows only his own side of the case (argument) knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion
A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
In all the more advanced communities the great majority of things are worse done by the intervention of government than the individuals most interested in the matter would do them, or cause them to be done, if left to themselves.
How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?
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.
The object of universities is not to make skillful lawyers, physicians or engineers. It is to make capable and cultivated human beings
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.
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.
The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.
Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.
To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.
All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.
It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.
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 to only one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.
The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.
Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.
A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs.
Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.
The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.
In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.
The moral influence of woman over man is almost always salutary.
All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
There is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions... The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy.
When one's ideas are not challenged, one's ability to defend them weakens.
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.
Liberty consists in doing what one desires.
... All ideas need to be heard, because each idea contains one aspect of the truth. By examining that aspect, we add to our own idea of the truth. Even ideas that have no truth in them whatsoever are useful because by disproving them, we add support to our own ideas.
History shows that great economic and social forces flow like a tide over communities only half conscious of that which is befalling them. Wise statesmen foresee what time is thus bringing, and try to shape institutions and mold men's thoughts and purposes in accordance with the change that is silently coming on. The unwise are those who bring nothing constructive to the process, and who greatly imperil the future of mankind by leaving great questions to be fought out between ignorant change on one hand and ignorant opposition to change on the other.
Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.
In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
The idea that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods, which most experience refutes. History is teeming with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries.
The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.
Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.
He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.
A being who can create a race of men devoid of real freedom and inevitably foredoomed to be sinners, and then punish them for being what he has made them, may be omnipotent and various other things, but he is not what the English language has always intended by the adjective holy.
There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.
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.
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.
The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete sceptics in religion.
All social inequalities which have ceased to be considered expedient, assume the character not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice, and appear so tyrannical, that people are apt to wonder how they ever could have. been tolerated; forgetful that they themselves perhaps tolerate other inequalities under an equally mistaken notion of expediency, the correction of which would make that which they approve seem quite as monstrous as what they have at last learnt to condemn.
There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.
Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.
Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.
There is an imaginary circle drawn around every human being, over which no government should be able to step.
Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.
Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.
The besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking a part of the truth for the whole.
The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors.
As often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions.
Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.
The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind - the lower animals.
So Long as we do not harm others we should be free to think, speak, act, & live as we see fit, without molestation from individuals, law, or gov't.
The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism.
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.
Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economising
Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.
Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title.
A people among whom there is no habit of spontaneous action for a collective interest - who look habitually to their government to command or prompt them in all matters of joint concern - who expect to have everything done for them, except what can be made an affair of mere habit and routine - have their faculties only half developed; their education is defective in one of its most important branches.
No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is.
Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person's notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from their own nature and faculties.
All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil.
On religion in particular, the time appears to me to have come, when it is a duty of all who, being qualified in point of knowledge, have, on mature consideration, satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false, but hurtful, to make their dissent known.
Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign.
Language is the light of the mind
A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.
He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.
The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.
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.
There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it.
Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates unduly over "thou shalt.
To mistake money for wealth, is the same sort of error as to mistake the highway which may be the easiest way of getting to your house or lands, for the house and lands themselves.
With equality of experience and of general faculties, a woman usually sees much more than a man of what is immediately before her.
All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.
In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.
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
The legal subordination of one sex to another - is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.
Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.
Photography is a brief complicity between foresight and luck.
Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.
My father taught me that the question Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?
Co-operation, like other difficult things, can be learned only by practice: and to be capable of it in great things, a people must be gradually trained to it in small. Now the whole course of advancing civilization is a series of such training.
Trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description of any goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principal, comes within the jurisdiction of society.
It is historically true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honor.
Since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
The study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.
The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.
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.
Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.
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. . . .
I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.
Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians.
Truth emerges from the clash of adverse ideas.
To understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman.
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.
It often happens that the universal belief of one age of mankind — a belief from which no one was, nor without an extraordinary effort of genius and courage, could at that time be free — becomes to a subsequent age so palpable an absurdity, that the only difficulty then is to imagine how such a thing can ever have appeared credible.
It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.
Judgement is given to men that they may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to use it at all?
A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.
A cultivated mind is one to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties.
Lord, enlighten thou our enemies. Sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers: we are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength.
Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit.
All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is their nature to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections.
Human beings are no longer born to their place in life...but are free to employ their faculties and such favorable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them as desirable.
Art is the employment of the powers of nature for an end.
What is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill, is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing.
The idea is essentially repulsive, of a society held together only by the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interest.
A people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it. They are more or less unfit for liberty; and although it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it
[A] man and still more the woman, who can be accused either of doing "what nobody does," or of not doing "what everybody does," is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency.
Stupidity is much the same all the world over
In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. ... Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege: one part of the people rule over the rest: there is a part whose fair and equal share of influence in the representation is withheld from them, contrary to all just government, but, above all, contrary to the principle of democracy, which professes equality as its very root and foundation.
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 from thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.
If religious belief be indeed so necessary to mankind, as we are continually assured that it is, there is great reason to lament, that the intellectual grounds of it should require to be backed by moral bribery or subornation of the understanding.
― John Stuart Mill Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
