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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.

-John Stuart Mill

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We Have Hitherto Considered

John Stuart Mill

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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.

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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.

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 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

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 Price Paid For Intellectual Pacification Is The Sacrifice Of The Entire Moral Courage Of The Human Mind.

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.

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.

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'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.

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

The 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Nonconformity, The Mere Refusal To Bend The Knee To Custom, Is Itself A Service.

Complete Liberty Of Contradicting And Disproving Our Opinion, Is The Very Condition Which Justifies Us In Assuming Its Truth For Purposes Of Action.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

Whatever Crushes Individuality Is Despotism.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Investing In Real Estate

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

[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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

To Refuse A Hearing To An Opinion, Because They Are Sure That It Is False, Is To Assume That Their Certainty Is The Same Thing As Absolute Certainty. All Silencing Of Discussion Is An Assumption Of Infallibility.

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.

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

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.

Genius Can Only Breathe Freely In An Atmosphere Of Freedom.

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

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.

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 .

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is 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 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.

If Any Opinion Is Compelled To Silence, That Opinion May, For Aught We Can Certainly Know, Be True. To Deny This Is To Assume Our Own Infallibility.

The 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.

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

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.

Such Are The Differences Among Human Beings In Their Sources Of Pleasure, Their Susceptibilities Of Pain, And The Operation On Them Of Different Physical And Moral Agencies, That Unless There Is A Corresponding Diversity In Their Modes Of Life, They Neither Obtain Their Fair Share Of Happiness, Nor Grow Up To The Mental, Moral, And Aesthetic Stature Of Which Their Nature Is Capable.

The 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Customs Are Made For Customary Circumstances, And Customary Characters.

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

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.

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.

In Proportion To The Development Of His Individuality, Each Person Becomes More Valuable To Himself, And Is Therefore Capable Of Being More Valuable To Others. . . .

The Principle Itself Of Dogmatic Religion, Dogmatic Morality, Dogmatic Philosophy, Is What Requires To Be Rooted Out; Not Any Particular Manifestation Of That Principle. The Very Corner-stone Of An Education Intended To Form Great Minds, Must Be The Recognition Of The Principle, That The Object Is To Call Forth The Greatest Possible Quantity Of Intellectual Power, And To Inspire The Intensest Love Of Truth.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Countries Of The World

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

As For Charity, It Is A Matter In Which The Immediate Effect On The Persons Directly Concerned, And The Ultimate Consequence To The General Good, Are Apt To Be At Complete War With One Another.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

When A Thing Is Bought Not For Its Use But For Its Costliness, Cheapness Is No Recommendation. As Sismondi Remarks, The Consequence Of Cheapening Articles Of Vanity, Is Not That Less Is Expended On Such Things, But That The Buyers Substitute For The Cheapened Article Some Other Which Is More Costly, Or A More Elaborate Quality Of The Same Thing; And As The Inferior Quality Answered The Purpose Of Vanity Equally Well When It Was Equally Expensive, A Tax On The Article Is Really Paid By Nobody: It Is A Creation Of Public Revenue By Which Nobody Loses.

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

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

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

Hitherto It Is Questionable If All The Mechanical Inventions Yet Made Have Lightened The Day's Toil Of Any Human Being. They Have Enabled A Greater Population To Live The Same Life Of Drudgery And Imprisonment, And An Increased Number Of Manufacturers And Others To Make Fortunes. They Have Increased The Comforts Of The Middle Classes. But They Have Not Yet Begun To Effect Those Great Changes In Human Destiny, Which It Is In Their Nature And In Their Futurity To Accomplish.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

If All Mankind Minus One Were Of One Opinion, Mankind Would Be No More Justified In Silencing That One Person Than He, If He Had The Power, Would Be Justified In Silencing Mankind.

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

So Long As An Opinion Is Strongly Rooted In The Feelings, It Gains Rather Than Loses In Stability By Having A Preponderating Weight Of Argument Against It.

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

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.

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

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.

How Can Great Minds Be Produced In A Country Where The Test Of Great Minds Is Agreeing In The Opinion Of Small Minds?

Stupidity Is Much The Same All The World Over

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.

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.

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

‎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.

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

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

The Demand For Commodities Is Not The Demand For Labor.

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

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.

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

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.

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 Better To Be A Human Being Dissatisfied Than A Pig Satisfied; Better To Be Socrates Dissatisfied Than A Fool Satisfied. And If The Fool, Or The Pig, Are Of A Different Opinion, It Is Because They Only Know Their Own Side Of The Question.

If The 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.

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.

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

...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.

On Religion In Particular The Time Appears To Me To Have Come When It Is The Duty Of All Who, Being Qualified In Point Of Knowledge, Have On Mature Consideration Satisfied Themselves That The Current Opinions Are Not Only False But Hurtful, To Make Their Dissent Known.

The 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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Positive Atheism

To Tax The Larger Incomes At A Higher Percentage Than The Smaller, Is To Lay A Tax On Industry And Economy; To Impose A Penalty On People For Having Worked Harder And Saved More Than Their Neighbors.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Original Thought

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

Most 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

... 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

All Good Things Which Exist Are The Fruits Of Originality.

Positive Thinking

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

The Legal Subordination Of One Sex To Another - Is Wrong In Itself, And Now One Of The Chief Hindrances To Human Improvement; And That It Ought To Be Replaced By A System Of Perfect Equality, Admitting No Power And Privilege On The One Side, Nor Disability On The Other.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Human Existence Is Girt Round With Mystery: The Narrow Region Of Our Experience Is A Small Island In The Midst Of A Boundless Sea. To Add To The Mystery, The Domain Of Our Earthly Existence Is Not Only An Island Of Infinite Space, But Also In Infinite Time. The Past And The Future Are Alike Shrouded From Us: We Neither Know The Origin Of Anything Which Is, Nor Its Final Destination.

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

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