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John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill Quotes

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Famous John Stuart Mill Quotes

“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.”

ShouldHumansPersonsFeelingsWould BeHuman BeingsPleasureAnimalChangedFoolPromiseCreaturesConscienceIntelligentSelfishSatisfiedBeastConsentAllowanceBeing SelfishRascalsDunces
Book:The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill
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“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.”

ThinkingWayShouldEnoughWould BeFormSocialMoralAtheismMankindAcceptanceJudgmentIdealsMajorityPositive AtheismBe GoodSatisfiedGood EnoughRebelliousSpontaneityTroublesomeReformersObstruction
Book:J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings
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“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.”

PeopleShouldCharacterAgeOrderMoralOpinionBreakDangerExampleAmountGeniusMarkMereDareTyrannyChiefsKneesCustomsConformityDesirableRefusalEccentricVigorReproachBreak ThroughStrength Of CharacterEccentricityMoral CourageNon Conformity
Book:Mill's On Liberty
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“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.”

PeopleShouldAgeOrderOpinionBreakExampleMereTyrannyKneesCustomsConformityDesirableRefusalEccentricReproachBreak ThroughStrength Of CharacterEccentricityNon Conformity
Book:J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings
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“...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?”

ShouldJusticePayPrinciplesShareParticularWords Of WisdomTaxesConstitutionBritishRepresentationTaxationMaximsExclusionBritish Constitution
Book:Speech of John Stuart Mill, M.P., on the Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise: Spoken in the House of Commons, May 20th, 1867
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“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.”

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Book:J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings
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“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.”

IfsWantGivingShouldMayCountryDesireWishProduceLaborSellsProductionsSellingProducersFormerUselessMotiveLatterConsumptionConsumerism
Book:Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
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