The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.
Category Archive: John Stuart Mill
The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.
Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.
The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.
In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.