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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

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John Stuart Mill
Age: 67 †
Born: 1806
Born: January 1
Died: 1873
Died: January 1
Autobiographer
Clerk
Economist
Egalitarianism
Philosopher
Politician
Suffragist
Writer
Islington
J. S. Mill
Danger
Contained
Genius
Marks
Courage
Chief
Amount
Chiefs
Moral
Generally
Proportional
Society
Dare
Eccentricity
Time
Mental
Vigor
Mark
Eccentric

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Art is the employent of the powers of nature for an end.
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It is conceivable that religion may be morally useful without being intellectually sustainable.
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A people may prefer a free government, but if by momentary discouragement or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or trust him with powers to subvert their institutions, in all these cases they are unfit for liberty.
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Lord, enlighten thou our enemies. Sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers: we are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength.
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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.
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Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
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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.
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As often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions.
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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.
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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.
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Trade is a social act.
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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.
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A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.
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Truth emerges from the clash of adverse ideas.
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I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.
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Is there any moral enormity which might not be justified by imitation of such a Deity?
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The test of real and vigorous thinking, the thinking which ascertains truths instead of dreaming dreams, is successful application to practice.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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