Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

John Stuart Mill (1806–73) was an English philosopher and economist. The most prominent British thinker of the 19th century, he was the founding father of liberal thought. He is known for his writings on logic and scientific methodology and his voluminous essays on social and political life.

Born in Pentonville, Middlesex, Mill was an intelligent child; he never attended school or university. He was educated privately by his father, the Scottish philosopher and economist James Mill. James Mill was also an associate of Jeremy Bentham, the Scottish utilitarian philosopher and legalist. John Stuart was converted to Benthamite utilitarianism at the age of 15 but later humanized utilitarianism by disregarding its egoistic psychology and the mechanical view of pleasure.

After canceling the study of law, Mill worked for the East India Company 1823–58, ultimately rising to the position of head of the examiner’s office. During this time, he wrote for periodicals and published A System of Logic (1843) and Principles of Political Economy (1848,) which influenced English radical thought. A System of Logic ran through many editions, establishing Mill’s philosophical reputation and greatly influencing John Venn, John Neville Keynes, Gottlob Frege, and Bertrand Russell (who was Mill’s godson “in a secular sense,”) mainly in its treatment of induction.

Mill is best known for his political and moral works, particularly On Liberty (1859,) which argued for the importance of individual freedom, and Utilitarianism (1863,) which extensively developed Bentham’s theory. In Considerations on Representative Government (1861,) Mill endorsed democratic participation, but only under strict conditions designed to defend the position of the virtuous élite. In Subjection of Women (1869) Mill defended the rights of women on equal terms with men—a landmark in the history of feminist writing.

Mill served as an Independent Member of Parliament 1865–68, where he campaigned for radical measures such as women’s suffrage. After his retirement, he spent much time in Avignon, France, where his wife Harriet Taylor (and co-author of On Liberty) was buried, and where he died. His famous Autobiography was published the year of his death.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Stuart Mill

The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of administrative skill, or of that semblance of it which practice gives, in the details of business; 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; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Individuality, Welfare

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 The Mind individual is sovereign.
—John Stuart Mill

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
—John Stuart Mill

Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Individuality

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Prejudice

It is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Opinions

The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Bureaucracy

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
—John Stuart Mill

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Originality, Innovation

Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Tolerance

Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians.
—John Stuart Mill

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you will cease to be so.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Happiness

All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Law, Lawyers

When the people are too much attached to savage independence, to be tolerant of the amount of power to which it is for their good that they should be subject, the state of society is not yet ripe for representative government.
—John Stuart Mill

The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishment, if society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its protection.
—John Stuart Mill

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Custom

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.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Individuality

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Service

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
—John Stuart Mill

There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Excellence

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Mind

The despotism of custom is on the wane. We are not content to know that things are; we ask whether they ought to be.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Custom, Habits

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England.
—John Stuart Mill

The idea that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods, which most experience refutes. History is teeming with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Truth

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Dissent, Accomplishment, Democracy, Opinions, Freedom

The bad workmen who form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry are decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as good.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Work

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Politics, Politicians

The most important thing women have to do is to stir up the zeal of women themselves.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Women

The study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.
—John Stuart Mill
Topics: Science

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
Topics: Thought

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