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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

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The Guesses Which Serve

John Stuart Mill

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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.

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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.

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.

The Laws And Conditions Of The Production Of Wealth Partake Of The Character Of Physical Truths. There Is Nothing Optional Or Arbitrary In Them ... It Is Not So With The Distribution Of Wealth. That Is A Matter Of Human Institution Solely. The Things Once There, Mankind, Individually Or Collectively, Can Do With Them As They Like.

... 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.

The Love Of Power And The Love Of Liberty Are In Eternal Antagonism.

The Peculiarity Of The Evidence Of Mathematical Truths Is That All The Argument Is On One Side.

Belief, Thus, In The Supernatural, Great As Are The Services Which It Rendered In The Early Stages Of Human Development, Cannot Be Considered To Be Any Longer Required, Either For Enabling Us To Know What Is Right And Wrong In Social Morality, Or For Supplying Us With Motives To Do Right And To Abstain From Wrong.

Most Persons Have But A Very Moderate Capacity Of Happiness. Expecting...in Marriage A Far Greater Degree Of Happiness Than They Commonly Find, And Knowing Not That The Fault Is In Their Own Scanty Capability Of Happiness.

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.

This Is What Writers Mean When They Say That The Notion Of Cause Involves The Idea Of Necessity. If There Be Any Meaning Which Confessedly Belongs To The Term Necessity, It Is Unconditionalness. That Which Is Necessary, That Which Must Be, Means That Which Will Be, Whatever Supposition We May Make In Regard To All Other Things.

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. Yet So Natural To Mankind Is Intolerance In Whatever They Really Care About, That Religious Freedom Has Hardly Anywhere Been Practically Realised, Except Where Religious Indifference, Which Dislikes To Have Its Peace Disturbed By Theological Quarrels, Has Added Its Weight To The Scale.

The Peculiar Evil Of Silencing The Expression Of An Opinion Is, That It Is Robbing The Human Race; Posterity As Well As The Existing Generation; Those Who Dissent From The Opinion, Still More Than Those Who Hold It. If The Opinion Is Right, They Are Deprived Of The Opportunity Of Exchanging Error For Truth: If Wrong, They Lose, What Is Almost As Great A Benefit, The Clearer Perception And Livelier Impression Of Truth, Produced By Its Collision With Error.

In Proportion As The People Are Accustomed To Manage Their Affairs By Their Own Active Intervention, Instead Of Leaving Them To The Government, Their Desires Will Turn To Repelling Tyranny, Rather Than To Tyrannizing: While In Proportion As All Ready Initiative And Direction Resides In The Government, And Individuals Habitually Feel And Act As Under Its Perpetual Tutelage, Popular Institutions Develop In Them Not The Desire Of Freedom, But An Unmeasured Appetite For Place And Power.

Eloquence Is Heard; Poetry Is Overheard ... All Poetry Is Of The Nature Of The Soliloquy.

No Longer Enslaved Or Made Dependent By Force Of Law, The Great Majority Are So By Force Of Property; They Are Still Chained To A Place, To An Occupation, And To Conformity With The Will Of An Employer, And Debarred By The Accident Of Birth To Both The Enjoyments, And From The Mental And Moral Advantages, Which Others Inherit Without Exertion And Independently Of Desert. That This Is An Evil Equal To Almost Any Of Those Against Which Mankind Have Hitherto Struggles, The Poor Are Not Wrong In Believing.

[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.

The Principle Itself Of Dogmatic Religion, Dogmatic Morality, Dogmatic Philosophy, Is What Requires To Be Rooted Out; Not Any Particular Manifestation Of That Principle. The Very Corner-stone Of An Education Intended To Form Great Minds, Must Be The Recognition Of The Principle, That The Object Is To Call Forth The Greatest Possible Quantity Of Intellectual Power, And To Inspire The Intensest Love Of Truth.

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 .

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.

There Is An Imaginary Circle Drawn Around Every Human Being, Over Which No Government Should Be Able To Step.

The Worth Of The State, In The Long Run, Is The Worth Of The Individuals Composing It.

The Philosophy Of Reasoning, To Be Complete, Ought To Comprise The Theory Of Bad As Well As Of Good Reasoning.

‎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.

All Desirable Things... Are Desirable Either For The Pleasure Inherent In Themselves, Or As A Means To The Promotion Of Pleasure And The Prevention Of Pain.

The Will Of The People, Moreover, Practically Means The Will Of The Most Numerous Or The Most Active Part Of The People; The Majority, Or Those Who Succeed In Making Themselves Accepted As The Majority; Type People, Consequently, May Desire To Oppress A Part Of Their Number; And Precautions Are As Much Needed Against This As Against Any Other Abuse Of Power.

There Is Always Hope When People Are Forced To Listen To Both Sides.

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.

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.

Strong Impulses Are But Another Name For Energy. Energy May Be Turned To Bad Uses; But More Good May Always Be Made Of An Energetic Nature, Than Of An Indolent And Impassive One.

The Successful Conduct Of An Industrial Enterprise Requires Two Quite Distinct Qualifications: Fidelity And Zeal.

... 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.

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.

In Proportion To The Development Of His Individuality, Each Person Becomes More Valuable To Others. There Is A Greater Fullness Of Life About His Own Existence, And When There Is More Life In The Units There Is More In The Mass Which Is Composed Of Them.

Fullness Of Life

Ask Yourself Whether You Are Happy, And You Cease To Be So.

It Would Not Be Easy Even For An Unbeliever, To Find A Better Translation Of The Rule Of Virtue From The Abstract Into The Concrete, Than To Endeavor So To Live That Christ Would Approve Our Life.

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.

Liberty Lies In The Rights Of That Person Whose Views You Find Most Odious.

In Early Times, The Great Majority Of The Male Sex Were Slaves, As Well As The Whole Of The Female. And Many Ages Elapsed, Some Of Them Ages Of High Cultivation, Before Any Thinker Was Bold Enough To Question The Rightfulness, And The Absolute Social Necessity, Either Of The One Slavery Or Of The Other.

Strange It Is That Men Should Admit The Validity Of The Arguments For Free Speech But Object To Their Being "pushed To An Extreme," Not Seeing That Unless The Reasons Are Good For An Extreme Case, They Are Not Good For Any Case.

Freedom Of Speech

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.

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.

What Citizens Of A Free Country Would Listen To Any Offers Of Good And Skillful Administration In Return For The Abdication Of Freedom?

In A World In Which There Is So Much To Interest, So Much To Enjoy, And So Much Also To Correct And Improve, Everyone Who Has This Moderate Amount Of Moral And Intellectual Requisites Is Capable Of An Existence Which May Be Called Enviable; And Unless Such A Person, Through Bad Laws, Or Subjection To The Will Of Others, Is Denied The Liberty To Use The Sources Of Happiness Within His Reach, He Will Not Fail To Find The Enviable Existence

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.

On Religion In Particular The Time Appears To Me To Have Come When It Is The 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.

I Have Observed That Not The Man Who Hopes When Others Despair, But The Man Who Despairs When Others Hope, Is Admired By A Large Class Of Persons As A Sage.

Almost All Rich Veins Of Original And Striking Speculation Have Been Opened By Systematic Half-thinkers.

When A Thing Is Bought Not For Its Use But For Its Costliness, Cheapness Is No Recommendation. As Sismondi Remarks, The Consequence Of Cheapening Articles Of Vanity, Is Not That Less Is Expended On Such Things, But That The Buyers Substitute For The Cheapened Article Some Other Which Is More Costly, Or A More Elaborate Quality Of The Same Thing; And As The Inferior Quality Answered The Purpose Of Vanity Equally Well When It Was Equally Expensive, A Tax On The Article Is Really Paid By Nobody: It Is A Creation Of Public Revenue By Which Nobody Loses.

No One Can Be A Great Thinker Who Does Not Recognize That As A Thinker It Is His First Duty To Follow His Intellect To Whatever Conclusions It May Lead.

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.

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.

All Good Things Which Exist Are The Fruits Of Originality.

Positive Thinking

Everyone Who Receives The Protection Of Society Owes A Return For The Benefit.

Liberty Consists In Doing What One Desires.

If The Earth Must Lose That Great Portion Of Its Pleasantness Which It Owes To Things That The Unlimited Increase Of Wealth And Population Would Extirpate From It, For The Mere Purpose Of Enabling It To Support A Larger, But Not A Happier Or A Better Population, I Sincerely Hope, For The Sake Of Posterity, That They Will Be Content To Be Stationary, Long Before Necessity Compels Them To It.

The Individual Is Not Accountable To Society For His Actions In So Far As These Concern The Interests Of No Person But Himself.

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.

Such Are The Differences Among Human Beings In Their Sources Of Pleasure, Their Susceptibilities Of Pain, And The Operation On Them Of Different Physical And Moral Agencies, That Unless There Is A Corresponding Diversity In Their Modes Of Life, They Neither Obtain Their Fair Share Of Happiness, Nor Grow Up To The Mental, Moral, And Aesthetic Stature Of Which Their Nature Is Capable.

The Application Of Algebra To Geometry ... Has Immortalized The Name Of Descartes, And Constitutes The Greatest Single Step Ever Made In The Progress Of The Exact Sciences.

If Two Or More Instances Of The Phenomenon Under Investigation Have Only One Circumstance In Common, The Circumstance In Which Alone All The Instances Agree Is The Cause (or Effect) Of The Given Phenomenon.

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 That Of Their Neighbors, A Peculiar Currency Of Their Own.

The Feeling Of A Direct Responsibility Of The Individual To God Is Almost Wholly A Creation Of Protestantism.

The Liberty Of The Individual Must Be Thus Far Limited; He Must Not Make Himself A Nuisance To Other People.

Pleasure And Freedom From Pain, Are The Only Things Desirable As Ends.

So Long As An Opinion Is Strongly Rooted In The Feelings, It Gains Rather Than Loses In Stability By Having A Preponderating Weight Of Argument Against It.

The General Tendency Of Things Throughout The World Is To Render Mediocrity The Ascendant Power Among Mankind.

All Silencing Of Discussion Is An Assumption Of Infallibility.

Absolute Certainty

He Must Be Able To Hear Them [the Counter Arguments] From Persons Who Actually Believe Them; Who Defend Them In Earnest, And Do Their Very Utmost For Them. He Must Know Them In Their Most Plausible And Persuasive Form; He Must Feel The Whole Force Of The Difficulty Which The True View Of The Subject Has To Encounter And Dispose Of; Else He Will Never Really Possess Himself Of The Portion Of Truth Which Meets And Removes That Difficulty.

Money Is A Machine For Doing Quickly And Commodiously What Would Be Done, Though Less Quickly And Commodiously, Without It.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Both Teachers And Learners Go To Sleep At Their Post As Soon As There Is No Enemy In The Field.

Whatever Crushes Individuality Is Despotism.

A Population May Be Too Crowded, Though All Be Amply Supplied With Food And Raiment. It Is Not Good For A Man To Be Kept Perforce At All Times In The Presence Of His Species.

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.

The Industrial Economy Which Divides Society Absolutely Into Two Portions, The Payers Of Wages And The Receivers Of Them, The First Counted By Thousands And The Last By Millions, Is Neither Fit For, Nor Capable Of, Indefinite Duration: And The Possibility Of Changing This System For One Of Combination Without Dependence, And Unity Of Interest Instead Of Organized Hostility, Depends Altogether Upon The Future Developments Of The Partnership Principle.

That So Few Now Dare To Be Eccentric, Marks The Chief Danger Of The Time.

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. . . .

Photography Is A Brief Complicity Between Foresight And Luck.

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.

The Moment One Asks Himself Whether He Is Happy, He Ceases To Be So.

In Its Narrowest Acceptation, Order Means Obedience. A Government Is Said To Preserve Order If It Succeeds In Getting Itself Obeyed.

In This Age, The Mere Example Of Nonconformity, The Mere Refusal To Bend The Knee To Custom, Is Itself A Service.

It Is Useful That While Mankind Are Imperfect There Should Be Different Opinions, So Is It That There Should Be Different Experiments Of Living; That Free Scope Should Be Given To Varieties Of Character, Short Of Injury To Others.

Different Opinions

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.

They Who Know How To Employ Opportunities Will Often Find That They Can Create Them; And What We Can Achieve Depends Less On The Amount Of Time We Possess Than On The Use We Make Of Our Time.

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.

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 Ne Plus Ultra Of Wickedness ... Is Embodied In What Is Commonly Presented To Mankind As The Creed Of Christianity.

I Am Not Aware That Any Community Has A Right To Force Another To Be Civilized.

The Process Of Tracing Regularity In Any Complicated, And At First Sight Confused, Set Of Appearances, Is Necessarily Tentative; We Begin By Making Any Supposition, Even A False One, To See What Consequences Will Follow From It ; And By Observing How These Differ From The Real Phenomena, We Learn What Corrections To Make In Our Assumption.

A Profound Conviction Raises A Man Above The Feeling Of Ridicule.

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.

It Is Only In The Backward Countries Of The World That Increased Production Is Still An Important Object.

Countries Of The World

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.

How Can Great Minds Be Produced In A Country Where The Test Of Great Minds Is Agreeing In The Opinion Of Small Minds?

Experience Has Taught Me That Those Who Give Their Time To The Absorbing Claims Of What Is Called Society, Not Having Leisure To Keep Up A Large Acquaintance With The Organs Of Opinion, Remain Much More Ignorant Of The General State Either Of The Public Mind, Or Of The Active And Instructed Part Of It, Than A Recluse Who Reads The Newspapers Need Be.

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.

Genius Can Only Breathe Freely In An Atmosphere Of Freedom.

In The Long-run, The Best Proof Of A Good Character Is Good Actions.

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.

School Education

Education And Freedom

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.

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.

I Had Learnt From Experience That Many False Opinions May Be Exchanged For True Ones, Without In The Least Altering The Habits Of Mind Of Which False Opinions Are Made.

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.

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.

Education Is One Of The Subjects Which Most Essentially Require To Be Considered By Various Minds, And From A Variety Of Points Of View. For, Of All Many-sided Subjects, It Is The One Which Has The Greatest Number Of Sides.

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.

Customs Are Made For Customary Circumstances, And Customary Characters.

The Disease Which Inflicts Bureaucracy And What They Usually Die From Is Routine.

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.

I Have Learned To Seek My Happiness By Limiting My Desires, Rather Than In Attempting To Satisfy Them.

If I Have Accomplished Anything, I Owe It, Among Other Fortunate Circumstances, To The Fact That Through The Early Training Bestowed On Me By My Father, I Started, I May Fairly Say, With An Advantage Of A Quarter Of A Century Over My Contemporaries.

Education Makes A Man A More Intelligent Shoemaker, If That Be His Occupation, But Not By Teaching Him How To Make Shoes; It Does So By The Mental Exercise It Gives, And The Habits It Impresses.

The Price Paid For Intellectual Pacification Is The Sacrifice Of The Entire Moral Courage Of The Human Mind.

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 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.

The Most Cogent Reason For Restricting The Interference Of Government Is The Great Evil Of Adding Unnecessarily To Its Power.

It Is Historically True That A Large Proportion Of Infidels In All Ages Have Been Persons Of Distinguished Integrity And Honor.

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.

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.

Political Revolution

To Think That Because Those Who Wield Power In Society Wield In The End That Of Government, Therefore It Is Of No Use To Attempt To Influence The Constitution Of The Government By Acting On Opinion, Is To Forget That Opinion Is Itself One Of The Greatest Active Social Forces. One Person With A Belief Is A Social Power Equal To Ninety-nine Who Have Only Interests.

Life Has A Certain Flavor For Those Who Have Fought And Risked All That The Sheltered And Protected Can Never Experience.

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.

The Natural Tendency Of Representative Government, As Of Modern Civilisation, Is Towards Collective Mediocrity: And This Tendency Is Increased By All Reductions And Extensions Of The Franchise, Their Effect Being To Place The Principal Power In The Hands Of Classes More And More Below The Highest Level Of Instruction In The Community.

One Person With A Belief Is Equal To Ninety-nine Who Have Only Interests.

...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

When The Land Is Cultivated Entirely By The Spade And No Horses Are Kept, A Cow Is Kept For Every Three Acres Of Land.

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

Those Only Are Happy (i Thought) Who Have Their Minds Fixed On Some Object Other Than Their Own Happiness.

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.

The Most Important Thing Women Have To Do Is To Stir Up The Zeal Of Women Themselves.

Over One's Mind And Over One's Body The Individual Is Sovereign.

Marriage Is The Only Actual Bondage Known To Our Law. There Remain No Legal Slaves, Except The Mistress Of Every House.

War Is An Ugly Thing, But Not The Ugliest Of Things: The Decayed And Degraded State Of Moral And Patriotic Feeling Which Thinks Nothing Worth A War, Is Worse. A War To Protect Other Human Beings Against Tyrannical Injustice; A War To Give Victory To Their Own Ideas Of Right And Good, And Which Is Their Own War, Carried On For An Honest Purpose By Their Own Free Choice - Is Often The Means Of Their Regeneration.

The Triumph Of The Confederacy... Would Be A Victory For The Powers Of Evil Which Would Give Courage To The Enemies Of Progress And Damp The Sprits Of Its Friends All Over The Civilized World... [the American Civil War] Is Destined To Be A Turning Point, For Good Or Evil, Of The Course Of Human Affairs.

Enemy Of Progress

The Pupil Who Is Never Required To Do What He Cannot Do, Never Does What He Can Do.

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.

As Often As A Study Is Cultivated By Narrow Minds, They Will Draw From It Narrow Conclusions.

Is There Any Moral Enormity Which Might Not Be Justified By Imitation Of Such A Deity?

The Sole Evidence It Is Possible To Produce That Anything Is Desirable, Is That People Do Actually Desire It.

...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.

Despotism Is A Legitimate Mode Of Government In Dealing With Barbarians, Provided The End Be Their Improvement.

If Opponents Of All Important Truths Do Not Exist, It Is Indispensable To Imagine Them And Supply Them With The Strongest Arguments Which The Most Skillful Devil's Advocate Can Conjure Up.

The Object Of Universities Is Not To Make Skillful Lawyers, Physicians Or Engineers. It Is To Make Capable And Cultivated Human Beings

The Real Advantage Which Truth Has, Consists In This, That When An Opinion Is True, It May Be Extinguished Once, Twice, Or Many Times, But In The Course Of Ages There Will Generally Be Found Persons To Rediscover It

There Is A Tolerably General Agreement About What A University Is Not. It Is Not A Place Of Professional Education.

Few Human Creatures Would Consent To Be Changed Into Any Of The Lower Animals For A Promise Of The Fullest Allowance Of A Beast's Pleasures; No Intelligent Human Being Would Consent To Be A Fool, No Instructed Person Would Be An Ignoramus, No Person Of Feeling And Conscience Would Be Selfish And Base, Even Though They Should Be Persuaded That The Fool, The Dunce, Or The Rascal Is Better Satisfied With His Lot Than They Are With Theirs.

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.

It Is Not The Feeling Sure Of A Doctrine (be It What It May) Which I Call An Assumption Of Infallibility. It Is The Undertaking To Decide That Question For Others, Without Allowing Them To Hear What Can Be Said On The Contrary Side. And I Denounce And Reprobate This Pretension Not The Less, If Put Forth On The Side Of My Most Solemn Convictions.

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 Opening Of A Foreign Trade, By Making Them Acquainted With New Objects, Or Tempting Them By The Easier Acquisition Of Things Which They Had Not Previously Thought Attainable, Sometimes Works A Sort Of Industrial Revolution In A Country Whose Resources Were Previously Undeveloped For Want Of Energy And Ambition In The People: Inducing Those Who Were Satisfied With Scanty Comforts And Little Work, To Work Harder For The Gratification Of Their New Tastes, And Even To Save, And Accumulate Capital, For The Still More Complete Satisfaction Of Those Tastes At A Future Time.

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.

A Man Of Clear Ideas Errs Grievously If He Imagines That Whatever Is Seen Confusedly Does Not Exist; It Belongs To Him, When He Meets With Such A Thing, To Dispel The Midst, And Fix The Outlines Of The Vague Form Which Is Looming Through 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.

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.

Was There Ever Any Domination That Did Not Appear Natural To Those Who Possessed It?

He Who Lets The World Choose His Plan Of Life For Him Has Need Of No Other Faculty Than That Of Ape-like Imitation.

All Action Is For The Sake Of Some End; And Rules Of Action, It Seems Natural To Suppose, Must Take Their Whole Character And Color From The End To Which They Are Subservient.

My Father Taught Me That The Question Who Made Me? Cannot Be Answered, Since It Immediately Suggests The Further Question, Who Made God?

Whether Moral And Social Phenomena Are Really Exceptions To The General Certainty And Uniformity Of The Course Of Nature; And How Far The Methods, By Which So Many Of The Laws Of The Physical World Have Been Numbered Among Truths Irrevocably Acquired And Universally Assented To, Can Be Made Instrumental To The Gradual Formation Of A Similar Body Of Received Doctrine In Moral And Political Science.

He Who Cannot By His Labor Suffice For His Own Support Has No Claim To The Privilege Of Helping Himself To The Money Of Others. By Becoming Dependent On The Remaining Members Of The Community For Actual Subsistence, He Abdicates His Claim To Equal Rights For Them I Other Respects.

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.

The Idea Is Essentially Repulsive, Of A Society Held Together Only By The Relations And Feelings Arising Out Of Pecuniary Interest.

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.

Not Only The Grounds Of The Opinion Are Forgotten In The Absence Of Discussion, But Too Often The Meaning Of The Opinion Itself... Instead Of A Vivid Conception And A Living Belief, There Remain Only A Few Phrases Retained By Rote; Or, If Any Part, The Shell And Husk Only Of The Meaning Is Retained, The Finer Essence Being Lost.

All Attempts By The State To Bias The Conclusions Of Its Citizens On Disputed Subjects, Are Evil.

Ask Yourself Whether You Are Happy And You Cease To Be So. The Only Chance Is To Treat Not Happiness, But Some End External To It, As The Purpose Of Life.

It's Hardly Possible To Overstate The Value, In The Present State Of Human Improvement, Of Placing Human Beings In Contact With Other Persons Dissimilar To Themselves, And With Modes Of Thought And Action Unlike Those With Which They Are Familiar. Such Communication Has Always Been... One Of The Primary Sources Of Progress.

There Is A Very Real Evil Consequent On Ascribing Supernatural Origin To The Received Maxilms Of Morality. That Origin Consecrates The Whole Of Them And Protects Them From Being Discussed Or Criticized.

With Equality Of Experience And Of General Faculties, A Woman Usually Sees Much More Than A Man Of What Is Immediately Before Her.

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

Next To Selfishness The Principal Cause Which Makes Life Unsatisfactory Is Want Of Mental Cultivation.

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.

Though It Is Only In A Very Imperfect State Of The World's Arrangements That Anyone Can Best Serve The Happiness Of Others By The Absolute Sacrifice Of His Own, Yet, So Long As The World Is In That Imperfect State, I Fully Acknowledge That The Readiness To Make Such A Sacrifice Is The Highest Virtue Which Can Be Found In Man.

As For Charity, It Is A Matter In Which The Immediate Effect On The Persons Directly Concerned, And The Ultimate Consequence To The General Good, Are Apt To Be At Complete War With One Another.

It Is Not Because Men's Desires Are Strong That They Act Ill; It Is Because Their Consciences Are Weak.

Of Two Pleasures, If There Be One Which All Or Almost All Who Have Experience Of Both Give A Decided Preference, Irrespective Of Any Feeling Of Moral Obligation To Prefer It, That Is The More Desirable Pleasure.

Hitherto It Is Questionable If All The Mechanical Inventions Yet Made Have Lightened The Day's Toil Of Any Human Being. They Have Enabled A Greater Population To Live The Same Life Of Drudgery And Imprisonment, And An Increased Number Of Manufacturers And Others To Make Fortunes. They Have Increased The Comforts Of The Middle Classes. But They Have Not Yet Begun To Effect Those Great Changes In Human Destiny, Which It Is In Their Nature And In Their Futurity To Accomplish.

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.

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?

It Is Given To No Human Being To Stereotype A Set Of Truths, And Walk Safely By Their Guidance With His Mind's Eye Closed.

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.

To Understand One Woman Is Not Necessarily To Understand Any Other Woman.

Since Reasoning , Or Inference, The Principal Subject Of Logic, Is An Operation Which Usually Takes Place By Means Of Words , And In Complicated Cases Can Take Place In No Other Way: Those Who Have Not A Thorough Insight Into Both The Signification And Purpose Of Words, Will Be Under Chances, Amounting Almost To Certainty, Of Reasoning Or Inferring Incorrectly.

Every Great Movement Must Experience Three Stages: Ridicule, Discussion, Adoption.

Truth Emerges From The Clash Of Adverse Ideas.

Landlords Grow Rich In Their Sleep Without Working, Risking Or Economising

Investing In Real Estate

I Know Tolerably Well What Ireland Was, But Have A Very Imperfect Idea Of What Ireland Is.

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.

Language Is The Light Of The Mind

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. Each Is The Proper Guardian Of His Own Health, Whether Bodily, Or Mental Or Spiritual. 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.

Persons Of Genius Are, Ex Vi Termini, More Individual Than Any Other People - Less Capable, Consequently, Of Fitting Themselves, Without Hurtful Compression, Into Any Of The Small Number Of Moulds Which Society Provides In Order To Save Its Members The Trouble Of Forming Their Character.

What Distinguishes The Majority Of Men From The Few Is Their Inability To Act According To Their Beliefs.

It Is Conceivable That Religion May Be Morally Useful Without Being Intellectually Sustainable.

Positive Atheism

But Society Has Now Fairly Got The Better Of Individuality; And The Danger Which Threatens Human Nature Is Not The Excess, But The Deficiency, Of Personal Impulses And Preferences.

There Is One Characteristic Of The Present Direction Of Public Opinion, Peculiarly Calculated To Make It Intolerant Of Any Marked Demonstration Of Individuality. The General Average Of Mankind Are Not Only Moderate In Intellect, But Also Moderate In Inclinations: They Have No Tastes Or Wishes Strong Enough To Incline Them To Do Anything Unusual, And They Consequently Do Not Understand Those Who Have, And Class All Such With The Wild And Intemperate Whom They Are Accustomed To Look Down Upon.

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