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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.

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
Matter
Consequence
Good
Ultimate
General
Concerned
Immediate
Effects
Directly
War
Charity
Another
Complete
Persons
Effect

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A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.
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Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting, the first in importance surely is man himself.
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I confess that I am not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the normal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other's heels, which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human beings
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Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.
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Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.
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There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
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And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.
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What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.
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In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. . . .
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Strange it is that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free speech but object to their being pushed to an extreme, not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case.
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A [psychological] difficulty is not an impossibility.
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Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.
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If the universe had a beginning, its beginning, by the very condition of the cases, was supernatural the laws of Nature cannot account for their own origin.
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To discover to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant to prove to it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can render to his fellow creatures.
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Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
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The legal subordination of one sex to another - is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.
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Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.
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