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Truth emerges from the clash of adverse ideas.

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
Ideas
Emerges
Adverse
Clash
Truth

More quotes by John Stuart Mill

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The successful conduct of an industrial enterprise requires two quite distinct qualifications: fidelity and zeal.
John Stuart Mill
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The cause, then, philosophically speaking, is the sum total of the conditions, positive and negative, taken together the whole of the contingencies of every description, which being realized, the consequent invariably follows.
John Stuart Mill
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A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another, and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government.
John Stuart Mill
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Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title.
John Stuart Mill
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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.
John Stuart Mill
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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.
John Stuart Mill
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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.
John Stuart Mill
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The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
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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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.
John Stuart Mill
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Every one is degraded, whether aware of it or not, when other people, without consulting him, take upon themselves unlimited power to regulate his destiny.
John Stuart Mill
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A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.
John Stuart Mill
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The feeling of a direct responsibility of the individual to God is almost wholly a creation of Protestantism.
John Stuart Mill
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Every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended.
John Stuart Mill
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Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.
John Stuart Mill
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The laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them ... It is not so with the Distribution of Wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as they like.
John Stuart Mill
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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.
John Stuart Mill
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In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them ages of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either of the one slavery or of the other.
John Stuart Mill
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Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
John Stuart Mill
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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.
John Stuart Mill