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

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There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
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No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
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Is there any moral enormity which might not be justified by imitation of such a Deity?
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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.
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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.
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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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To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.
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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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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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The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.
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Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.
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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.
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So Long as we do not harm others we should be free to think, speak, act, & live as we see fit, without molestation from individuals, law, or gov't.
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If opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skillful devil's advocate can conjure up.
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In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. . . .
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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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Was there ever any domination that did not appear natural to those who possessed it?
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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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