Top 366 Quotes & Sayings by John Stuart Mill

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English philosopher John Stuart Mill.

Last updated on November 25, 2024.

John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.

English - Philosopher | May 20, 1806 - May 8, 1873

Source: Wikipedia

Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.

John Stuart Mill

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.

John Stuart Mill

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.

John Stuart Mill

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

John Stuart Mill

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

John Stuart Mill

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.

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.

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.

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.

John Stuart Mill

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

John Stuart Mill

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

John Stuart Mill

Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.

John Stuart Mill

The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.

John Stuart Mill

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.

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.

John Stuart Mill

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.

John Stuart Mill

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

John Stuart Mill

The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.

John Stuart Mill

The person 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.

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.

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill

Men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread.

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.

John Stuart Mill

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

John Stuart Mill

Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.

John Stuart Mill

All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.

John Stuart Mill

The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

John Stuart Mill

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

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.

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill

Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.

John Stuart Mill

I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.

John Stuart Mill

The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors.

John Stuart Mill

That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.

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

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.

John Stuart Mill

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

John Stuart Mill

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.

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.

John Stuart Mill

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.

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.

John Stuart Mill

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

John Stuart Mill

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.

John Stuart Mill

There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.

John Stuart Mill

There is an imaginary circle drawn around every human being, over which no government should be able to step.

John Stuart Mill

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.

John Stuart Mill

In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.

John Stuart Mill

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?

John Stuart Mill

Liberty lies in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious.

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill

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

John Stuart Mill

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.

John Stuart Mill