John Stuart Mill quotes - page 6

My father was as well aware as anyone that Christians do not, in general, undergo the demoralizing consequences which seem inherent in such a creed, in the manner or to the extent which might have been expected from it. The same slovenliness of thought, and subjection of the reason to fears, wishes, and affections, which enable them to accept a theory involving a contradiction in terms, prevents them from perceiving the logical consequences of the theory. Such is the facility with which mankind believe at one and the same time things inconsistent with one another, and so few are those who draw from what they receive as truths, any consequences but those recommended to them by their feelings, that multitudes have held the undoubting belief in an Omnipotent Author of Hell, and have nevertheless identified that being with the best conception they were able to form of perfect goodness. (John Stuart Mill)
the course of instruction which I have partially retraced, the point most superficially apparent is the great effort to give, during the years of childhood an amount of knowledge in what are considered the higher branches of education, which is seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until the age of manhood. View quote
John Stuart Mill
These considerations did not make us overlook the folly of premature attempts to dispense with the inducements of private interest in social affairs, while no substitute for them has been or can be provided: but we regarded all existing institutions and social arrangements as being (in a phrase I once heard from Austin) "merely provisional," and we welcomed with the greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by select individuals (such as the Co-operative Societies), which, whether they succeeded or failed, could not but operate as a most useful education of those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general good, or making them aware of the defects which render them and others incapable of doing so. View quote
John Stuart Mill
Wisdom and contrivance are shown in overcoming difficulties, so there is no place for them in a Being for whom no difficulties exist. View quote
John Stuart Mill
The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end. View quote
John Stuart Mill
I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. View quote
John Stuart Mill
Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience. View quote
John Stuart Mill
Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends. View quote
John Stuart Mill
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. View quote
John Stuart Mill
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. View quote
John Stuart Mill
What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs. (John Stuart Mill)
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. View quote
John Stuart Mill
The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine. View quote
John Stuart Mill
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. View quote
John Stuart Mill
The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement. View quote
John Stuart Mill
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. View quote
John Stuart Mill
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. View quote
John Stuart Mill
In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny. View quote
John Stuart Mill
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. View quote
John Stuart Mill
No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is. View quote
John Stuart Mill
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. (John Stuart Mill)
Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth. View quote
John Stuart Mill
The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind. View quote
John Stuart Mill
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. View quote
John Stuart Mill
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. View quote
John Stuart Mill