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The Majority, Being Satisfied With The Ways Of Mankind As They Now Are (for It Is They Who Make Them What They Are), Cannot Comprehend Why Those Ways Should Not Be Good Enough For Everybody; And What Is More, Spontaneity Forms No Part Of The Ideal Of The Majority Of Moral And Social Reformers, But Is Rather Looked On With Jealousy, As A Troublesome And Perhaps Rebellious Obstruction To The General Acceptance Of What These Reformers, In Their Own Judgment, Think Would Be Best For Mankind.

-John Stuart Mill

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The Majority, Being Satisfied

John Stuart Mill

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The Majority, Being Satisfied With The Ways Of Mankind As They Now Are (for It Is They Who Make Them What They Are), Cannot Comprehend Why Those Ways Should Not Be Good Enough For Everybody; And What Is More, Spontaneity Forms No Part Of The Ideal Of The Majority Of Moral And Social Reformers, But Is Rather Looked On With Jealousy, As A Troublesome And Perhaps Rebellious Obstruction To The General Acceptance Of What These Reformers, In Their Own Judgment, Think Would Be Best For Mankind.

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Instead Of The Function Of Governing, For Which It Is Radically Unfit, The Proper Office Of A Representative Assembly Is To Watch And Control The Government.

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

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

Countries Of The World

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

A Party Of Order Or Stability, And A Party Of Progress Or Reform, Are Both Necessary Elements Of A Healthy State Of Political Life.

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

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

It Is Questionable If All The Mechanical Inventions Yet Made Have Lightened The Day's Toil Of Any Human Being.

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.

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

The Great Creative Individual . . . Is Capable Of More Wisdom And Virtue Than Collective Man Ever Can Be.

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.

Among A People Without Fellow-feeling, Especially If They Read And Speak Different Languages, The United Public Opinion, Necessary To The Working Of The Representative Government, Cannot Exist.

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

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.

There Is Nothing Which An Untrained Mind Shows Itself More Hopelessly Incapable, Than In Drawing The Proper General Conclusions From Its Own Experience. And Even Trained Minds, When All Their Training Is On A Special Subject, And Does Not Extend To The General Principles Of Induction, Are Only Kept Right When There Are Ready Opportunities Of Verifying Their Inferences By Facts.

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.

The Despotism Of Custom Is Everywhere The Standing Hindrance To Human Advancement.

Language Is The Light Of The Mind

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Among The Works Of Man, Which Human Life Is Rightly Employed In Perfecting, The First In Importance Surely Is Man Himself.

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.

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.

...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.

Genius Can Only Breathe Freely In An Atmosphere Of Freedom.

Any Participation, Even In The Smallest Public Function, Is Useful.

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.

He Who Does Anything Because It Is The Custom, Makes No Choice.

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

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

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.

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.

When The People Are Too Much Attached To Savage Independence, To Be Tolerant Of The Amount Of Power To Which It Is For Their Good That They Should Be Subject, The State Of Society Is Not Yet Ripe For Representative Government.

The Duty Of Man Is The Same In Respect To His Own Nature As In Respect To The Nature Of All Other Things, Namely Not To Follow It But To Amend It.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Average Condition Of The People Improving Or Deteriorating, Depends Upon Whether Population Is Advancing Faster Than Improvement, Or Improvement Than Population.

The Validity Of All The Inductive Methods Depends On The Assumption That Every Event, Or The Beginning Of Every Phenomenon, Must Have Some Cause; Some Antecedent, Upon The Existence Of Which It Is Invariably And Unconditionally Consequent.

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

God Is A Word To Express, Not Our Ideas, But The Want Of Them.

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.

... 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.

In This Age, The Man Who Dares To Think For Himself And To Act Independently Does A Service To His Race.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

There Are Many Truths Of Which The Full Meaning Cannot Be Realized Until Personal Experience Has Brought It Home.

To Do As One Would Be Done By, And To Love One's Neighbour As Oneself, Constitute The Ideal Perfection Of Utilitarian Morality

[my Father] Impressed Upon Me From The First, That The Manner In Which The World Came Into Existence Was A Subject On Which Nothing Was Known: That The Question, "who Made Me?" Cannot Be Answered, Because We Have No Experience Or Authentic Information From Which To Answer It; And That Any Answer Only Throws The Difficulty A Step Further Back, Since The Question Immediately Presents Itself, "who Made God?

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.

There Is No 'one-size-fits-all' Way To Build An Audience.

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.

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

The Art Of Music Is Good, For The Reason, Among Others, That It Produces Pleasure; But What Proof Is It Possible To Give That Pleasure Is Good? If, Then, It Is Asserted That There Is A Comprehensive Formula, Including All Things Which Are In Themselves Good, And That Whatever Else Is Good, Is Not So As An End, But As A Mean, The Formula May Be Accepted Or Rejected, But Is Not A Subject Of What Is Commonly Understood By Proof.

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

Hardly Any Original Thoughts On Mental Or Social Subjects Ever Make Their Way Among Mankind Or Assume Their Proper Importance In The Minds Even Of Their Inventors, Until Aptly Selected Words Or Phrases Have As It Were Nailed Them Down And Held Them Fast.

Original Thought

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A [psychological] Difficulty Is Not An Impossibility.

Seeming Contentment Is Real Discontent, Combined With Indolence Or Self-indulgence, Which, While Taking No Legitimate Means Of Raising Itself, Delights In Bringing Others Down To Its Own Level.

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

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

All Free Communities Have Both Been More Exempt From Social Injustice And Crime, And Have Attained More Brilliant Prosperity, Than Any Others, Or Than They Themselves After They Have Lost Their Freedom.

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.

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

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

The Strongest Of All Arguments Against The Interference Of The Public With Purely Personal Conduct, Is That When It Does Interfere, The Odds Are That It Interferes Wrongly, And In The Wrong Place.

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.

The Great Majority Of Those Who Speak Of Perfectibility As A Dream, Do So Because They Feel That It Is One Which Would Afford Them No Pleasure If It Were Realized.

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 Principles Which Men Profess On Any Controverted Subject Are Usually A Very Incomplete Exponent Of The Opinions They Really Hold.

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.

We Often Hear The Teachers Of All Creeds Lamenting The Difficulty Of Keeping Up In The Minds Of Believers A Lively Apprehension Of The Truth Which They Nominally Recognize, So That It May Penetrate The Feelings, And Acquire A Real Mastery Over The Conduct.... When It Has Come To Be A Hereditary Creed, And To Be Received Passively, Not Actively ... There Is A Progressive Tendency To Forget All Of The Belief Except The Formularies ... Until It Almost Ceases To Connect Itself At All With The Inner Life Of The Human Being.

If It Were Felt That The Free Development Of Individuality Is One Of The Leading Essentials Of Well-being; That It Is Not Only A Coordinate Element With All That Is Designated By The Terms Civilisation, Instruction, Education, Culture, But Is Itself A Necessary Part And Condition Of All Those Things; There Would Be No Danger That Liberty Should Be Undervalued.

If It Were Only That People Have Diversities Of Taste, That Is Reason Enough For Not Attempting To Shape Them All After One Model. But Different Persons Also Require Different Conditions For Their Spiritual Development, And Can No More Exist Healthily In The Same Moral, Than All The Varieties Of Plants Can In The Same Physical, Atmosphere And Climate.

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

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.

The Principle Itself Of Dogmatic Religion, Dogmatic Morality, Dogmatic Philosophy, Is What Requires To Be Booted Out; Not Any Particular Manifestation Of That Principle.

So True Is That Unnatural Generally Means Only Uncustomary, And That Everything Which Is Usual Appears Natural.

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

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

All Acts Suppose Certain Dispositions, And Habits Of Mind And Heart, Which May Be In Themselves States Of Enjoyment Or Of Wretchedness, And Which Must Be Fruitful In Other Consequences Besides Those Particular Acts.

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

So Natural To Mankind Is Intolerance ... That Religious Freedom Has Hardly Anywhere Been Practically Realized.

It Must Be Granted That In Every Syllogism, Considered As An Argument To Prove The Conclusion, There Is A Petitio Principii. When We Say, All Men Are Mortal Socrates Is A Man Therefore Socrates Is Mortal; It Is Unanswerably Urged By The Adversaries Of The Syllogistic Theory, That The Proposition, Socrates Is Mortal.

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.

Mechanizing Man's Work Had Changed But Not Lighted His Toil.

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.

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.

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

Although It Is Not True That All Conservatives Are Stupid People, It Is True That Most Stupid People Are Conservative.

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.

Each Undervalues That Part Of The Materials Of Thought With Which He Is Not Familiar.

Customs Are Made For Customary Circumstances, And Customary Characters.

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

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.

Any Society Which Is Not Improving Is Deteriorating, And The More So The Closer And More Familiar It Is. Even A Really Superior Man Almost Always Begins To Deteriorate When He Is Habitually King Of His Company.

Induction Is A Process Of Inference; It Proceeds From The Known To The Unknown.

As Long As Justice And Injustice Have Not Terminated Their Ever Renewing Fight For Ascendancy In The Affairs Of Mankind, Human Beings Must Be Willing, When Need Is, To Do Battle For The One Against The Other.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Is A Law, That Every Event Depends On Some Law.

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 Be Found, Men Did Not For That Reason Suppose That None Existed, But Imagined That It Was Something Peculiarly Abstruse And Mysterious.

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

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.

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

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

All Silencing Of Discussion Is An Assumption Of Infallibility.

Absolute Certainty

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.

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.

It Can Do Truth No Service To Blind The Fact, Known To All Who Have The Most Ordinary Acquaintance With Literary History, That A Large Portion Of The Noblest And Most Valuable Moral Teaching Has Been The Work Not Only Of Men Who Did Not Know, But Of Men Who Knew And Rejected The Christian Faith.

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.

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.

It Appears, Then, To Be A Condition Of A Genuinely Scientific Hypothesis, That It Be Not Destined Always To Remain An Hypothesis, But Be Certain To Be Either Proved Or Disproved By.. .comparison With Observed Facts.

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

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.

The Demand For Commodities Is Not The Demand For Labor.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The Beliefs Which We Have Most Warrant For Have No Safeguard To Rest On But A Standing Invitation To The Whole World To Prove Them Unfounded. If The Challenge Is Not Accepted, Or Is Accepted And The Attempt Fails, We Are Far Enough From Certainty Still; But We Have Done The Best That The Existing State Of Human Reason Admits Of; We Have Neglected Nothing That Could Give The Truth A Chance Of Reaching Us.

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.

Truth Emerges From The Clash Of Adverse Ideas.

The Study Of Science Teaches Young Men To Think, While Study Of The Classics Teaches Them To Express Thought.

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.

The Dictum That Truth Always Triumphs Over Persecution Is One Of The Pleasant Falsehoods Which Men Repeat After One Another Till They Pass Into Commonplaces, But Which All Experience Refutes.

Men Might As Well Be Imprisoned, As Excluded From The Means Of Earning Their Bread.

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.

A Great Statesman Is He Who Knows When To Depart From Traditions, As Well As When To Adhere To Them.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Libertarian Party

It Is Part Of The Irony Of Life That The Strongest Feelings Of Devoted Gratitude Of Which Human Nature Seems To Be Susceptible, Are Called Forth In Human Beings Towards Those Who, Having The Power Entirely To Crush Their Earthly Existence, Voluntarily Refrain From Using That Power.

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

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.

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

Trade Is A Social Act.

The Test Of Real And Vigorous Thinking, The Thinking Which Ascertains Truths Instead Of Dreaming Dreams, Is Successful Application To Practice.

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.

What A Country Wants To Make It Richer Is Never Consumption, But Production. Where There Is The Latter, We May Be Sure That There Is No Want Of The Former. To Produce, Implies That The Producer De_sires To Consume; Why Else Should He Give Himself Useless Labor? He May Not Wish To Consume What He Himself Produces, But His Motive For Producing And Selling Is The Desire To Buy. Therefore, If The Producers Generally Produce And Sell More And More, They Certainly Also Buy More And More.

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.

...it Is Not Only The General Principles Of Justice That Are Infringed, Or At Least Set Aside, By The Exclusion Of Women, Merely As Women, From Any Share In The Representation; That Exclusion Is Also Repugnant To The Particular Principles Of The British Constitution. It Violates One Of The Oldest Of Our Constitutional Maxims...that Taxation And Representation Should Be Co-extensive. Do Not Women Pay Taxes?

Words Of Wisdom

A State Of Things In Which A Large Portion Of The Most Active And Inquiring Intellects Find It Advisable To Keep The Genuine Principles And Grounds Of Their Convictions Within Their Own Breasts, And Attempt, In What They Address To The Public, To Fit As Much As They Can Of Their Own Conclusions To Premises Which They Have Internally Renounced, Cannot Send Forth The Open, Fearless Characters, And Logical, Consistent Intellects Who Once Adorned The Thinking World.

Every Opinion Which Embodies Somewhat Of The Portion Of Truth Which The Common Opinion Omits, Ought To Be Considered Precious, With Whatever Amount Of Error And Confusion That Truth May Be Blended.

In All Intellectual Debates, Both Sides Tend To Be Correct In What They Affirm, And Wrong In What They Deny.

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

I Confess That I Am Not Charmed With The Ideal Of Life Held Out By Those Who Think That The Normal State Of Human Beings Is That Of Struggling To Get On; That The Trampling, Crushing, Elbowing, And Treading On Each Other's Heels, Which Form The Existing Type Of Social Life, Are The Most Desirable Lot Of Human Beings

Political Economy As A Branch Of Science Is Extremely Modern; But The Subject With Which Its Enquiries Are Conversant Has In All Ages Necessarily Constituted One Of The Chief Practical Interests Of Mankind.

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.

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

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. . . .

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.

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.

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.

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.

Christian Morality (so Called) Has All The Characters Of A Reaction.... In Its Horror Of Sensuality, It Made An Idol Of Asceticism, Which Has Been Gradually Compromised Away Into One Of Legality. It Holds Out The Hope Of Heaven And The Threat Of Hell, As The Appointed And Appropriate Motives To A Virtuous Life - In This Falling Far Below The Best Of The Ancients, And Doing What Lies In It To Give To Human Morality An Essentially Selfish Character.... It Is Essentially A Doctrine Of Passive Obedience; It Inculcates Submission To All Authorities Found Established.

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 True Virtue Of Human Beings Is Fitness To Live Together As Equals; Claiming Nothing For Themselves But What They As Freely Concede To Everyone Else; Regarding Command Of Any Kind As An Exceptional Neccessity, And In All Cases A Temporary One.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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