Quote

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

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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
Free
Enthusiasm
Unfit
Individual
Lays
Discouragement
Government
Fit
Momentary
May
Institutions
Liberties
Great
Cases
Panic
Even
Trust
Temporary
Men
Feet
Prefer
Subvert
People
Liberty
Powers
Induced

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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.
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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.
John Stuart Mill
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That a thing is peculiar is no argument for its being blamable since the most criminal actions are to a being like man not more unnatural than most of the virtues.
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The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be booted out not any particular manifestation of that principle.
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Trade is a social act.
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God is a word to express, not our ideas, but the want of them.
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Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
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Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with which he is not familiar.
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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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A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
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Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.
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It is part of the irony of life that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible, are called forth in human beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that power.
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The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.
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Though it is only in a very imperfect state of the world's arrangements that anyone can best serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of his own, yet, so long as the world is in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge that the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue which can be found in man.
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The strongest of all arguments against the interference of the public with purely personal conduct, is that when it does interfere, the odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place.
John Stuart Mill
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Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign.
John Stuart Mill
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A person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse.
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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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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.
John Stuart Mill