Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Part
Absolutes
Body
Absolute
Right
Independence
Mind
Merely
Concern
Amenable
Society
Concerns
Individual
Sovereign
Others
Conduct

More quotes by John Stuart Mill

Image
Almost all rich veins of original and striking speculation have been opened by systematic half-thinkers.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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
Image
As often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Mechanizing man's work had changed but not lighted his toil.
John Stuart Mill
Image
[A] man and still more the woman, who can be accused either of doing what nobody does, or of not doing what everybody does, is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description of any goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general and thus his conduct, in principal, comes within the jurisdiction of society.
John Stuart Mill
Image
In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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
Image
Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
With equality of experience and of general faculties, a woman usually sees much more than a man of what is immediately before her.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with which he is not familiar.
John Stuart Mill