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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.

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
Giving
Perception
Perceptions
Weakness
Fills
Acuteness
Danger
Wit
Enlighten
Strength
Reasoning
Clearness
Enemy
Folly
Sharpen
Wisdom
Enemies
Wits
Lord
Powers
Apprehension
Give
Thou
Enlightening

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The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
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In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.
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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.
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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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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.
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A government with all this mass of favours to give or to withhold, however free in name, wields a power of bribery scarcely surpassed by an avowed autocracy, rendering it master of the elections in almost any circumstances but those of rare and extraordinary public excitement.
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Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
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A man of clear ideas errs grievously if he imagines that whatever is seen confusedly does not exist it belongs to him, when he meets with such a thing, to dispel the midst, and fix the outlines of the vague form which is looming through it.
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We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
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The study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.
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How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?
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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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I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are made.
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If I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries.
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Not only the grounds of the opinion are forgotten in the absence of discussion, but too often the meaning of the opinion itself... Instead of a vivid conception and a living belief, there remain only a few phrases retained by rote or, if any part, the shell and husk only of the meaning is retained, the finer essence being lost.
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He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.
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Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of the representative government, cannot exist.
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To mistake money for wealth, is the same sort of error as to mistake the highway which may be the easiest way of getting to your house or lands, for the house and lands themselves.
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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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No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.
John Stuart Mill