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The Maxim Is, That Whatever Can Be Affirmed (or Denied) Of A Class, May Be Affirmed (or Denied) Of Everything Included In The Class. This Axiom, Supposed To Be The Basis Of The Syllogistic Theory, Is Termed By Logicians The Dictum De Omni Et Nullo.

-John Stuart Mill

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The Maxim Is, That

John Stuart Mill

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The Maxim Is, That Whatever Can Be Affirmed (or Denied) Of A Class, May Be Affirmed (or Denied) Of Everything Included In The Class. This Axiom, Supposed To Be The Basis Of The Syllogistic Theory, Is Termed By Logicians The Dictum De Omni Et Nullo.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Only Part Of The Conduct Of Any One, For Which He Is Amenable To Society, Is That Which Concerns Others. In The Part Which Merely Concerns Himself, His Independence Is, Of Right, Absolute. Over Himself, Over His Own Body And Mind, The Individual Is Sovereign.

There Is A Limit To The Legitimate Interference Of Collective Opinion With Individual Independence: And To Find That Limit, And Maintain It Against Encroachment, Is As Indispensable To A Good Condition Of Human Affairs, As Protection Against Political Despotism.

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

Liberty Consists In Doing What One Desires.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

A People May Prefer A Free Government, But If, From Indolence, Or Carelessness, Or Cowardice, Or Want Of Public Spirit, They Are Unequal To The Exertions Necessary For Preserving It. They Are More Or Less Unfit For Liberty; And Although It May Be For Their Good To Have Had It Even For A Short Time, They Are Unlikely Long To Enjoy It

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

Men Do Not Desire To Be Rich, But To Be Richer Than Other Men.

All That Makes Existence Valuable To Any One Depends On The Enforcement Of Restraints Upon The Actions Of Other People.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Idea That Truth Always Triumphs Over Persecution Is One Of Those Pleasant Falsehoods, Which Most Experience Refutes. History Is Teeming With Instances Of Truth Put Down By Persecution. If Not Put Down Forever, It May Be Set Back For Centuries.

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

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.

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

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.

Even If The Received Opinion Be Not Only True, But The Whole Truth; Unless It Is Suffered To Be, And Actually Is, Vigorously And Earnestly Contested, It Will, By Most Of Those Who Receive It, Be Held In The Manner Of A Prejudice, With Little Comprehension Or Feeling Of Its Rational Grounds

A Government With All This Mass Of Favours To Give Or To Withhold, However Free In Name, Wields A Power Of Bribery Scarcely Surpassed By An Avowed Autocracy, Rendering It Master Of The Elections In Almost Any Circumstances But Those Of Rare And Extraordinary Public Excitement.

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. . . .

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 Maxim Is, That Whatever Can Be Affirmed (or Denied) Of A Class, May Be Affirmed (or Denied) Of Everything Included In The Class. This Axiom, Supposed To Be The Basis Of The Syllogistic Theory, Is Termed By Logicians The Dictum De Omni Et Nullo.

Accordingly, France Had Voltaire, And His School Of Negative Thinkers, And England (or Rather Scotland) Had The Profoundest Negative Thinker On Record, David Hume: A Man, The Peculiarities Of Whose Mind Qualified Him To Detect Failure Of Proof, And Want Of Logical Consistency, At A Depth Which French Skeptics, With Their Comparatively Feeble Powers Of Analysis And Abstractions Stop Far Short Of, And Which German Subtlety Alone Could Thoroughly Appreciate, Or Hope To Rival.

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.

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

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 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.

All Errors Which A Man Is Likely To Commit Against Advice Are Far Outweighed By The Evil Of Allowing Others To Constrain Him For His Good.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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. Eccentricity Has Always Abounded When And Where Strength Of Character Has Abounded; And The Amount Of Eccentricity In A Society Has Generally Been Proportional To The Amount Of Genius, Mental Vigor, And Moral Courage Which It Contained. That So Few Now Dare To Be Eccentric, Marks The Chief Danger Of The Time.

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

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.

A Person Should Be Free To Do As He Likes In His Own Concerns; But He Ought Not To Be Free To Do As He Likes In Acting For Another, Under The Pretext That The Affairs Of The Other Are His Own Affairs.

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.

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

Positive Atheism

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.

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

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

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

‎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.

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

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.

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

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

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

A [psychological] Difficulty Is Not An Impossibility.

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

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.

He Who Lets The World, Or His Own Portion Of It, Choose His Plan Of Life For Him, Has No Need Of Any Other Faculty Than The Ape-like One Of Imitation. He Who Chooses His Plan For Himself, Employs All His Faculties. He Must Use Observation To See, Reasoning And Judgment To Foresee, Activity To Gather Materials For Decision, Discrimination To Decide, And When He Has Decided, Firmness And Self-control To Hold To His Deliberate Decision.

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

Investing In Real Estate

All Social Inequalities Which Have Ceased To Be Considered Expedient, Assume The Character Not Of Simple Inexpediency, But Of Injustice, And Appear So Tyrannical, That People Are Apt To Wonder How They Ever Could Have. Been Tolerated; Forgetful That They Themselves Perhaps Tolerate Other Inequalities Under An Equally Mistaken Notion Of Expediency, The Correction Of Which Would Make That Which They Approve Seem Quite As Monstrous As What They Have At Last Learnt To Condemn.

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.

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.

To Say That Secular Means Irreligious Implies That All The Arts And Sciences Are Irreligious, And Is Very Like Saying That All Professions Except That Of The Law Are Illegal.

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.

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.

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.

The Prevailing Tendency To Regard All The Marked Distinctions Of Human Character As Innate, And In The Main Indelible, And To Ignore The Irresistible Proofs That By Far The Greater Part Of Those Differences, Whether Between Individuals, Races, Or Sexes Are Such As Not Only Might But Naturally Would Be Produced By Differences In Circumstances, Is One Of The Chief Hinderances To The Rational Treatment Of Great Social Questions, And One Of The Greatest Stumbling Blocks To Human Improvement.

Most Boys Or Youths Who Have Had Much Knowledge Drilled Into Them, Have Their Mental Capacities Not Strengthened, But Overlaid By It. They Are Crammed With Mere Facts, And With The Opinions And Phrases Of Other People, And These Are Accepted As A Substitute For The Power To Form Opinions Of Their Own. And Thus, The Sons Of Eminent Fathers, Who Have Spared No Pains In Their Education, So Often Grow Up Mere Parroters Of What They Have Learnt, Incapable Of Using Their Minds Except In The Furrows Traced For Them.

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.

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

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 .

... 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Solitude In The Presence Of Natural Beauty And Grandeur Is The Cradle Of Thought And Aspirations Which Are Not Only Good For The Individual, But Which Society Can Ill Do Without.

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.

Laws And Systems Of Polity Always Begin By Recognizing The Relations They Find Already Existing Between Individuals.

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

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.

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

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.

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

A People May Prefer A Free Government, But If By Momentary Discouragement Or Temporary Panic, Or A Fit Of Enthusiasm For An Individual, They Can Be Induced To Lay Their Liberties At The Feet Of Even A Great Man, Or Trust Him With Powers To Subvert Their Institutions, In All These Cases They Are Unfit For Liberty.

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.

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.

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.

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

[i] Put The Question Directly To Myself: "suppose That All Your Objects In Life Were Realized; That All The Changes In Institutions And Opinions Which You Are Looking Forward To, Could Be Completely Effected At This Very Instant: Would This Be A Great Joy And Happiness To You?" And An Irrepressible Self-consciousness Distinctly Answered, "no!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Men Do Not Want Solely The Obedience Of Women, They Want Their Sentiments.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

Bad Men Need Nothing More To Compass Their Ends, Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing.

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

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

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 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.

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 Person's Taste Is As Much His Own Peculiar Concern As His Opinion Or His Purse.

Customs Are Made For Customary Circumstances, And Customary Characters.

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.

My Father Never Permitted Anything Which I Learnt To Degenerate Into A Mere Exercise Of Memory. He Strove To Make The Understanding Not Only Go Along With Every Step Of The Teaching But...precede It.

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

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.

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

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

[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?

Truths Are Known To Us In Two Ways: Some Are Known Directly, And Of Themselves; Some Through The Medium Of Other Truths. The Former Are The Subject Of Intuition, Or Consciousness; The Latter, Of Inference; The Latter Of Inference. The Truths Known By Intuition Are The Original Premisses, From Which All Others Are Inferred.

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.

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

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.

Photography Is A Brief Complicity Between Foresight And Luck.

Unfortunately For The Good Sense Of Mankind, The Fact Of Their Fallibility Is Far From Carrying The Weight In Their Practical Judgement, Which Is Always Allowed To It In Theory; For While Every One Well Knows Himself To Be Fallible, Few Think It Necessary To Take Any Precautions Against Their Own Fallibility.

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

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.

...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

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

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.

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

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 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.

A Man Who Has Nothing For Which He Is Willing To Fight, Nothing Which Is More Important Than His Own Personal Safety, Is A Miserable Creature And Has No Chance Of Being Free Unless Made And Kept So By The Exertions Of Better Men Than Himself.

The Amount Of Eccentricity In A Society Has Generally Been Proportional To The Amount Of Genius, Mental Vigor, And Moral Courage It Contained. That So Few Now Dare To Be Eccentric Marks The Chief Danger Of The Time.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Countries Of The World

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

...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 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.

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.

The Perpetual Obstacle To Human Advancement Is Custom.

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.

The Concessions Of The Privileged To The Unprivileged Are Seldom Brought About By Any Better Motive Than The Power Of The Unprivileged To Extort Them.

Society Can And Does Execute Its Own Mandates: And If It Issues Wrong Mandates Instead Of Right, Or Any Mandates At All In Things With It Ought Not To Meddle, It Practices A Social Tyranny More Formidable Than Many Kinds Of Political Oppression, Since, Though Not Usually Upheld By Such Extreme Penalties, It Leaves Fewer Means Of Escape, Penetrating Much More Deeply Into The Details Of Life, And Enslaving The Soul Itself.

Details Of Life

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

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.

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

Everything Must Be Free To Be Written And Published Without Restraint.

But These Few Are The Salt Of The Earth; Without Them, Human Life Would Become A Stagnant Pool. Not Only Is It They Who Introduce Good Things Which Did Not Before Exist, It Is They Who Keep The Life In Those Which Already Existed.

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.

Stupidity Is Much The Same All The World Over

All The Good Of Which Humanity Is Capable Is Comprised In Obedience.

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 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.

Trade Is A Social Act.

The Spirit Of Improvement Is Not Always A Spirit Of Liberty, For It May Aim At Forcing Improvements On An Unwilling People.

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.

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

Every Established Fact Which Is Too Bad To Admit Of Any Other Defence Is Always Presented To Us As An Injunction Of Religion.

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.

What Is Contrary To Women's Nature To Do, They Never Will Be Made To Do By Simply Giving Their Nature Free Play.

All Silencing Of Discussion Is An Assumption Of Infallibility.

Absolute Certainty

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

It Is Better To Be Socrates Dissatisfied Than A Pig Satisfied.

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.

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

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

Men And Governments Must Act To The Best Of Their Ability. There Is No Such Thing As Absolute Certainty But There Is Assurance Sufficient For The Purposes Of Human Life.

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.

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

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

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Roger Bannister

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