John Stuart Mill Quotes

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

The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own. And if no real entity answering to the name could b...

One person with a belief is worth 99 people who have only interests.

It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species. A world from which solitude is extirpated is a very poor ideal. Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is...

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 the...

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives... I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally...

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.

So much barbarism, however, still remains in the transactions of most civilized nations, that almost all independent countries choose to assert their nationality by having, to their inconvenience and...

Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.

He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice.

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.

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.

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.

Command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life: society in equality is its normal state.

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

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

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

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.