John Stuart Mill Quotes & Sayings (Page 5)

“We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.”

“All desirable things... are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.”

“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.”

“The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses.”

“All action is for the sake of some end; and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and color from the end to which they are subservient.”

“All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.”

“Of two pleasures, if there be one which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.”

“Men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread.”

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.”

“Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.”