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The process of tracing regularity in any complicated, and at first sight confused, set of appearances, is necessarily tentative we begin by making any supposition, even a false one, to see what consequences will follow from it and by observing how these differ from the real phenomena, we learn what corrections to make in our assumption.

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
Make
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Appearance
Appearances
Making
False
Differ
Process
Necessarily
Phenomena
Science
Complicated
Observing
Tentative
Firsts
Consequence
Assumption
Supposition
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Sight
Consequences
Tracing
Real
Begin
Observation
Regularity
Even
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Confused
Corrections

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The demand for commodities is not the demand for labor.
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That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
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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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He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.
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Trade is a social act.
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A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.
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On religion in particular, the time appears to me to have come, when it is a duty of all who, being qualified in point of knowledge, have, on mature consideration, satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false, but hurtful, to make their dissent known.
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All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience.
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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.
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In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.
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Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.
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The feeling of a direct responsibility of the individual to God is almost wholly a creation of Protestantism.
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The guesses which serve to give mental unity and wholeness to a chaos of scattered particulars, are accidents which rarely occur to any minds but those abounding in knowledge and disciplined in intellectual combinations.
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Everything must be free to be written and published without restraint.
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However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.
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I well knew that to propose something which would be called extreme, was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experiment.
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Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.
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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.
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Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.
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Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.
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