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Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.

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
Despotism
Legitimate
Mode
Provided
Dealing
Improvement
Ends
Government
Barbarians

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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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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.
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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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Almost all rich veins of original and striking speculation have been opened by systematic half-thinkers.
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All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil.
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Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign.
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The cause, then, philosophically speaking, is the sum total of the conditions, positive and negative, taken together the whole of the contingencies of every description, which being realized, the consequent invariably follows.
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The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.
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Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.
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Though it is only in a very imperfect state of the world's arrangements that anyone can best serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of his own, yet, so long as the world is in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge that the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue which can be found in man.
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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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In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them ages of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either of the one slavery or of the other.
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The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be booted out not any particular manifestation of that principle.
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Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
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... All ideas need to be heard, because each idea contains one aspect of the truth. By examining that aspect, we add to our own idea of the truth. Even ideas that have no truth in them whatsoever are useful because by disproving them, we add support to our own ideas.
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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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The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.
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A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
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All errors which a man is likely to commit against advice are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him for his good.
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