Quote

It often happens that the universal belief of one age of mankind — a belief from which no one was, nor without an extraordinary effort of genius and courage, could at that time be free — becomes to a subsequent age so palpable an absurdity, that the only difficulty then is to imagine how such a thing can ever have appeared credible.

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
Without
Imagine
Difficulty
Thing
Belief
Extraordinary
Time
Age
Universal
Free
Genius
Palpable
Often
Courage
Subsequent
Happens
Mankind
Credible
Ideas
Becomes
Appeared
Ever
Effort
Absurdity

More quotes by John Stuart Mill

Image
All desirable things... are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Judgement is given to men that they may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to use it at all?
John Stuart Mill
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The feeling of a direct responsibility of the individual to God is almost wholly a creation of Protestantism.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person's notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from their own nature and faculties.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The moment one asks himself whether he is happy, he ceases to be so.
John Stuart Mill
Image
How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?
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
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
Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting, the first in importance surely is man himself.
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
Everything must be free to be written and published without restraint.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.
John Stuart Mill