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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.

-John Stuart Mill

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The Peculiar Evil Of

John Stuart Mill

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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.

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That A Thing Is Peculiar; Is No Argument For Its Being Blamable; Since The Most Criminal Actions Are To A Being Like Man Not More Unnatural Than Most Of The Virtues.

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.

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.

Art Is The Employent Of The Powers Of Nature For An End.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Popular Opinions, On Subjects Not Palpable To Sense, Are Often True, But Seldom Or Never The Whole Truth.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

‎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.

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

The Perpetual Obstacle To Human Advancement Is Custom.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

No Slave Is A Slave To The Same Lengths, And In So Full A Sense Of The Word, As A Wife Is.

Since The State Must Necessarily Provide Subsistence For The Criminal Poor While Undergoing Punishment, Not To Do The Same For The Poor Who Have Not Offended Is To Give A Premium On Crime.

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.

A Cultivated Mind Is One To Which The Fountains Of Knowledge Have Been Opened, And Which Has Been Taught, In Any Tolerable Degree, To Exercise Its Faculties.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

Trade Is A Social Act.

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.

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.

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

It Often Happens That The Universal Belief Of One Age Of Mankind — A Belief From Which No One Was, Nor Without An Extraordinary Effort Of Genius And Courage, Could At That Time Be Free — Becomes To A Subsequent Age So Palpable An Absurdity, That The Only Difficulty Then Is To Imagine How Such A Thing Can Ever Have Appeared Credible.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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 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.

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.

Miracles Have No Claim Whatever To The Character Of Historical Facts And Are Wholly Invalid As Evidence Of Any Revelation.

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.

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 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.

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

Stupidity Is Much The Same All The World Over

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

When One's Ideas Are Not Challenged, One's Ability To Defend Them Weakens.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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

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. . . .

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Political Economy, In Truth, Has Never Pretended To Give Advice To Mankind With No Lights But Its Own; Though People Who Knew Nothing But Political Economy (and Therefore Knew It Ill) Have Taken Upon Themselves To Advise, And Could Only Do So By Such Lights As They Had.

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.

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.

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

[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?

Christian Morality (so Called) Has All The Characters Of A Reaction; It Is, In Great Part, A Protest Against Paganism. Its Ideal Is Negative Rather Than Positive; Passive Rather Than Action; Innocence Rather Than Nobleness; Abstinence From Evil, Rather Than Energetic Pursuit Of Good: In Its Precepts (as Has Been Well Said) "thou Shalt Not" Predominates Unduly Over "thou Shalt.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Doctrine Called Philosophical Necessity Is Simply This: That, Given The Motives Which Are Present To An Individual's Mind, And Given Likewise The Character And Disposition Of The Individual, The Manner In Which He Will Act Might Be Unerringly Inferred: That If We Knew The Person Thoroughly, And Knew All The Inducements Which Are Acting Upon Him, We Could Foretell His Conduct With As Much Certainty As We Can Predict Any Physical Event.

The Demand For Commodities Is Not The Demand For Labor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Not The Violent Conflict Between Parts Of The Truth, But The Quiet Suppression Of Half Of It, Is The Formidable Evil; There Is Always Hope When People Are Forced To Listen To Both Sides; It Is When They Attend To Only One That Errors Harden Into Prejudices, And Truth Itself Ceases To Have The Effect Of Truth, By Being Exaggerated Into Falsehood.

To Discover To The World Something Which Deeply Concerns It, And Of Which It Was Previously Ignorant; To Prove To It That It Had Been Mistaken On Some Vital Point Of Temporal Or Spiritual Interest, Is As Important A Service As A Human Being Can Render To His Fellow Creatures.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

...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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Customs Are Made For Customary Circumstances, And Customary Characters.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Photography Is A Brief Complicity Between Foresight And Luck.

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.

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.

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

Investing In Real Estate

Language Is The Light Of The Mind

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

...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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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