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Any society which is not improving is deteriorating, and the more so the closer and more familiar it is. Even a really superior man almost always begins to deteriorate when he is habitually king of his company.

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
Always
King
Deteriorating
Men
Kings
Habitually
Progress
Improving
Almost
Superior
Company
Superiors
Society
Closer
Even
Begins
Really
Familiar
Deteriorate

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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.
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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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And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.
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Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
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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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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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Since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
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Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people - less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their character.
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The natural tendency of representative government, as of modern civilisation, is towards collective mediocrity: and this tendency is increased by all reductions and extensions of the franchise, their effect being to place the principal power in the hands of classes more and more below the highest level of instruction in the community.
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Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.
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But these few are the salt of the earth without them, human life would become a stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did not before exist, it is they who keep the life in those which already existed.
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Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
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The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.
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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.
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In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.
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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.
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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.
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The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.
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All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience.
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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.
John Stuart Mill