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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.

-John Stuart Mill

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The True Virtue Of

John Stuart Mill

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

All Good Things Which Exist Are The Fruits Of Originality.

Positive Thinking

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.

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

Countries Of The World

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

Liberty Consists In Doing What One Desires.

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

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.

The Bad Workmen Who Form The Majority Of The Operatives In Many Branches Of Industry Are Decidedly Of Opinion That Bad Workmen Ought To Receive The Same Wages As Good.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

A Stationary Condition Of Capital And Population Implies No Stationary State Of Human Improvement. There Could Be As Much Scope As Ever For All Kinds Of Mental Culture, And Moral And Social Progress.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 [psychological] Difficulty Is Not An Impossibility.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

[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!

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.

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

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

It Is A Bitter Thought, How Different A Thing The Christianity Of The World Might Have Been, If The Christian Faith Had Been Adopted As The Religion Of The Empire Under The Auspices Of Marcus Aurelius Instead Of Those Of Constantine.

The United States Is No More A Christian Nation Because Most Of Its Citizens Are Christians Than It Is A 'white' Nation Because Most Of Its Citizens Are White. We Are Americans Because We Practice Democracy And Believe In Republican Government, Not Because We Practice Revealed Religion And Believe In Bible-based Government.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Truth Emerges From The Clash Of Adverse Ideas.

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

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.

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.

... 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

There Is Always Need Of Persons Not Only To Discover New Truths, And Point Out When What Were Once Truths Are True No Longer, But Also To Commence New Practices, And Set The Example Of More Enlightened Conduct, And Better Taste And Sense In Human Life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There 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

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.

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

Whatever Crushes Individuality Is Despotism.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Trade Is A Social Act.

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.

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

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

The Moral Influence Of Woman Over Man Is Almost Always Salutary.

Originality Is The One Thing Which Unoriginal Minds Cannot Feel The Use Of.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The 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.

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.

What Little Recognition The Idea Of Obligation To The Public Obtains In Modern Morality, Is Derived From Greek And Roman Sources, Not From Christian; As, Even In The Morality Of Private Life, Whatever Exists Of Magnanimity, High-mindeness, Personal Dignity, Even The Sense Of Honour, Is Derived From The Purely Human, Not The Religious Part Of Our Education, And Never Could Have Grown Out Of A Standard Of Ethics In Which The Only Worth, Professedly Recognized, Is That Of Obedience.

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

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

Customs Are Made For Customary Circumstances, And Customary Characters.

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

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

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.

...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.

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.

Language Is The Light Of The Mind

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

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

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

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.

We Have Hitherto Considered Only Two Possibilities: That The Received Opinion May Be False, And Some Other Opinion, Consequently, True; Or That, The Received Opinion Being True, A Conflict With The Opposite Error Is Essential To A Clear Apprehension And Deep Feeling Of Its Truth. But There Is A Commoner Case Than Either Of These; When The Conflicting Doctrines, Instead Of Being One True And The Other False, Share The Truth Between Them.

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.

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

That 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Demand For Commodities Is Not The Demand For Labor.

The Habit Of Analysis Has A Tendency To Wear Away The Feelings.

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.

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

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

Among The Facts Of The Universe To Be Accounted For, It May Be Said, Is Mind; And It Is Self Evident That Nothing Can Have Produced Mind But Mind.

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.

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.

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.

Photography Is A Brief Complicity Between Foresight And Luck.

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 Better To Be Socrates Dissatisfied Than A Pig Satisfied.

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

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

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.

... 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.

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

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.

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.

All Silencing Of Discussion Is An Assumption Of Infallibility.

Absolute Certainty

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.

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

Genius Can Only Breathe Freely In An Atmosphere Of Freedom.

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

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.

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

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

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