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John Stuart Mill Biography

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873) was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.

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John Stuart Mill Quotes

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.

Arbitrary, Character, Human, Matter, Science, Truth

Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction. . . . In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life - in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character. . . . It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established.

Characters, Christian, Established, Lying, Selfish, Threat

There is a very real evil consequent on ascribing supernatural origin to the received maxilms of morality. That origin consecrates the whole of them and protects them from being discussed or criticized.

Evil, Maxilms, Morality, Real

If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a happier or a better population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.

Compels, Enabling, Long, Pleasantness, Sake, Support

If it were only that people have diversities of taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model. But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development, and can no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the varieties of plants can in the same physical, atmosphere and climate.

Atmosphere, Different, Diversities, Diversity, People, Spiritual

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.

Evil, Liberty, Would Be, Opinion, Stifling, Stifle

All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience.

Capable, Good, Humanity, Obedience

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

Military, Patriotic, Thinks, Ugly, War

The industrial economy which divides society absolutely into two portions, the payers of wages and the receivers of them, the first counted by thousands and the last by millions, is neither fit for, nor capable of, indefinite duration: and the possibility of changing this system for one of combination without dependence, and unity of interest instead of organized hostility, depends altogether upon the future developments of the Partnership principle.

Changing, Counted, Two, Unity, Wages, Wisdom

No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is.

Length, Lengths, Same, Slave, Wife, Word

In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to others. There is a greater fullness of life about his own existence, and when there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is composed of them.

Becomes, Development, Fullness Of Life, Greater, Individuality, Proportion

It appears, then, to be a condition of a genuinely scientific hypothesis, that it be not destined always to remain an hypothesis, but be certain to be either proved or disproved by. . . comparison with observed facts.

Science, Destiny, Facts, Remain, Comparison, Disproved

The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear from thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.

Desire, Effort, Efforts, Forward, Human Nature, State

So much barbarism, however, still remains in the transactions of most civilized nations, that almost all independent countries choose to assert their nationality by having, to their inconvenience and that of their neighbors, a peculiar currency of their own.

Assert, Country, Independent, Neighbors, Peculiar

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

Dissent, Errors, Opportunity, Peculiar, Perception, Race

The legal subordination of one sex to another - is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

Sex, Perfect, Admitting, Chief, System

The moral influence of woman over man is almost always salutary.

Influence, Man, Men, Moral, Morality, Woman

It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.

Dissatisfied, Pig, Pigs, Satisfied

Judgement is given to men that they may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to use it at all?

May, Men, Told, Use, Used

Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments.

Men, Obedience, Sentiments, Solely, Want, Women

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