Quote

A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.

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
Politics
Central
Detail
Society
Creates
Grade
Freedom
Details
Carrying
Desire
Ambition
Lowest
Often
Institutions
Reverse
Spirit
Democratic
Grades
Domination
Political
Constitution
Liberalism
Confined
Government
Economy
Precisely
Supported

More quotes by John Stuart Mill

Image
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
Image
The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
John Stuart Mill
Image
A person whose desires and impulses are his own - are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture - is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
John Stuart Mill
Image
A people may prefer a free government, but if by momentary discouragement or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or trust him with powers to subvert their institutions, in all these cases they are unfit for liberty.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
John Stuart Mill
Image
It would not be easy even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it
John Stuart Mill
Image
Among the facts of the universe to be accounted for, it may be said, is Mind and it is self evident that nothing can have produced Mind but Mind.
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
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.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
John Stuart Mill
Image
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
Image
So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The triumph of the Confederacy... would be a victory for the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the sprits of its friends all over the civilized world... [The American Civil War] is destined to be a turning point, for good or evil, of the course of human affairs.
John Stuart Mill
Image
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings.
John Stuart Mill
Image
The idea is essentially repulsive, of a society held together only by the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interest.
John Stuart Mill
Image
My father taught me that the question Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?
John Stuart Mill
Image
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.
John Stuart Mill