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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.

-John Stuart Mill

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There Is One Characteristic

John Stuart Mill

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

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

I Will Call No Being Good Who Is Not What I Mean When I Apply That Epithet To My Fellow Creatures; And If Such A Creature Can Sentence Me To Hell For Not So Calling Him, To Hell I Will Go .

The 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.

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

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.

[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!

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Demand For Commodities Is Not The Demand For Labor.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Men Are Men Before They Are Lawyers, Or Physicians, Or Merchants, Or Manufacturers; And If You Make Them Capable And Sensible Men, They Will Make Themselves Capable And Sensible Lawyers Or Physicians.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Stupidity Is Much The Same All The World Over

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Only Power Deserving The Name Is That Of Masses, And Of Governments While They Make Themselves The Organ Of The Tendencies And Instincts Of Masses.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

Investing In Real Estate

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

...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

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 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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Truth Emerges From The Clash Of Adverse Ideas.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Besetting Danger Is Not So Much Of Embracing Falsehood For Truth, As Of Mistaking A Part Of The Truth For The Whole.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

A Person May Cause Evil To Others Not Only By His Actions But By His Inaction, And In Either Case He Is Justly Accountable To Them For The Injury.

Among 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

A State Which Dwarfs Its Men, In Order That They May Be More Docile Instruments In Its Hands Even For Beneficial Purposes--will Find That With Small Men No Great Thing Can Really Be Accomplished.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Liberty Consists In Doing What One Desires.

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.

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

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

The Perpetual Obstacle To Human Advancement Is Custom.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

A 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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

A Person Whose Desires And Impulses Are His Own - Are The Expression Of His Own Nature, As It Has Been Developed And Modified By His Own Culture - Is Said To Have A Character. One Whose Desires And Impulses Are Not His Own, Has No Character, No More Than A Steam-engine Has Character.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

So Much Barbarism, However, Still Remains In The Transactions Of Most Civilized Nations, That Almost All Independent Countries Choose To Assert Their Nationality By Having, To Their Inconvenience And That Of Their Neighbors, A Peculiar Currency Of Their Own.

I Well Knew That To Propose Something Which Would Be Called Extreme, Was The True Way Not To Impede But To Facilitate A More Moderate Experiment.

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

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

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

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.

Co-operation, Like Other Difficult Things, Can Be Learned Only By Practice: And To Be Capable Of It In Great Things, A People Must Be Gradually Trained To It In Small. Now The Whole Course Of Advancing Civilization Is A Series Of Such Training.

In 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.

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

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

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

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.

Customs Are Made For Customary Circumstances, And Customary Characters.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The 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.

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.

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

The 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

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

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

Countries Of The World

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

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.

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

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.

All Silencing Of Discussion Is An Assumption Of Infallibility.

Absolute Certainty

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.

The Cause, Then, Philosophically Speaking, Is The Sum Total Of The Conditions, Positive And Negative, Taken Together; The Whole Of The Contingencies Of Every Description, Which Being Realized, The Consequent Invariably Follows.

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

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.

All Good Things Which Exist Are The Fruits Of Originality.

Positive Thinking

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.

Trade Is A Social Act.

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.

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.

Landlords Grow Rich In Their Sleep Without Working, Risking Or Economizing. The Increase In The Value Of Land, Arising As It Does From The Efforts Of An Entire Community, Should Belong To The Community And Not To The Individual Who Might Hold Title.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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. . . .

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