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Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.

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
Opinion
Frankly
Public
Opinions
Freedom
Fully
Every
Thinks
Men
Service
Thinking
Grateful
Says
Cherished
Liberty
Attacking

More quotes by John Stuart Mill

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There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it.
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It must be granted that in every syllogism, considered as an argument to prove the conclusion, there is a petitio principii. When we say, All men are mortal Socrates is a man therefore Socrates is mortal it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries of the syllogistic theory, that the proposition, Socrates is mortal.
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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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Is there any moral enormity which might not be justified by imitation of such a Deity?
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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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All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.
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Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.
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My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching but...precede it.
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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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Every established fact which is too bad to admit of any other defence is always presented to us as an injunction of religion.
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Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians.
John Stuart Mill
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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.
John Stuart Mill
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Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.
John Stuart Mill
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[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.
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Every one is degraded, whether aware of it or not, when other people, without consulting him, take upon themselves unlimited power to regulate his destiny.
John Stuart Mill
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Miracles have no claim whatever to the character of historical facts and are wholly invalid as evidence of any revelation.
John Stuart Mill
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The demand for commodities is not the demand for labor.
John Stuart Mill
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A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.
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Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
John Stuart Mill
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Political Economy as a branch of science is extremely modern but the subject with which its enquiries are conversant has in all ages necessarily constituted one of the chief practical interests of mankind.
John Stuart Mill