When one's ideas are not challenged, one's ability to defend them weakens. John Stuart Mill More Quotes by John Stuart Mill More Quotes From John Stuart Mill The despotism of custom is on the wane. We are not content to know that things are; we ask whether they ought to be. John Stuart Mill customsdespotismought I well knew that to propose something which would be called extreme, was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experiment. John Stuart Mill wellswould-beway It is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present. John Stuart Mill certainopinionage All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience. John Stuart Mill capableobediencehumanity The average condition of the people improving or deteriorating, depends upon whether population is advancing faster than improvement, or improvement than population. John Stuart Mill populationaveragepeople If the universe had a beginning, its beginning, by the very condition of the cases, was supernatural; the laws of Nature cannot account for their own origin. John Stuart Mill accountscaseslaw Human beings are not like sheep; and even sheep are not undistinguishably alike. A man cannot get a coat or a pair oboots to fit him, unless they are either made to his measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in the shape of their feet? If it were only that people have diversities of taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model. John Stuart Mill spiritualsheepmen The United States is no more a Christian nation because most of its citizens are Christians than it is a 'white' nation because most of its citizens are white. We are Americans because we practice democracy and believe in republican government, not because we practice revealed religion and believe in Bible-based government. John Stuart Mill governmentchristianbelieve To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality John Stuart Mill philosophicalperfectionwould-be The guesses which serve to give mental unity and wholeness to a chaos of scattered particulars, are accidents which rarely occur to any minds but those abounding in knowledge and disciplined in intellectual combinations. John Stuart Mill disciplineintellectualgiving ...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 doctrinelibertymay There should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences. It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved. John Stuart Mill doctrineselfishwould-be 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. John Stuart Mill economicschancemay 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. John Stuart Mill lawlongthinking The ends of scientific classification are best answered, when the objects are formed into groups respecting which a greater number of general propositions can be made, and those propositions more important, than could be made respecting any other groups into which the same things could be distributed. ... A classification thus formed is properly scientific or philosophical, and is commonly called a Natural, in contradistinction to a Technical or Artificial, classification or arrangement. John Stuart Mill philosophicalnumbersscience I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a creature can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go . John Stuart Mill hellcallingmean Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit. John Stuart Mill protectionbenefitsreturn There are no means of finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying - and no means by which anyone else can discover for them what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone John Stuart Mill undonetryingmean ... 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. John Stuart Mill doctrinerealcharacter I have a hundred times heard him say, that all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in a constantly increasing progression; that mankind have gone on adding trait after trait till they reached the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind could devise, and have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it. John Stuart Mill wickedperfectmind
