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John Stuart Mill Quotes

1806–1873 England

John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873), also known as J. S.

England
Academics
Activists
Autobiographers
Economists

Also known as: J s mill, J. S. Mill, J.S. Mill, Mill, John Stuart

Random John Stuart Mill quote

122 quotes

One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

On Representative Government (1861)

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of a great mind is agreeing in the opinions of small minds?

Egoists: A Book of Supermen (1909)

I deny that anyone knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another.

The Subjection of Women (1869)

Whatever is known to us by consciousness, is known beyond possibility of question. What one sees or feels, whether bodily or mentally, one cannot but be sure that one sees or feels.

A System of Logic (1843)

Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.

Principles of Political Economy (1848)

A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy.

On Representative Government (1861)

What is called the Law of Nations is not properly law, but a part of ethics: a set of moral rules, accepted as authoritative by civilized states.

Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof.

Utilitarianism (1861)

To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.

Utilitarianism (1861)

Stupidity is much the same all the world over.

The Subjection of Women (1869)

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

A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do never does all he can.

Autobiography (1873)

Nothing contributes more to nourish elevation of sentiments in a people, than the large and free character of their habitations.

Autobiography (1873)

Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.

On Liberty (1859)

But unpoetical natures are precisely those which require poetic cultivation.

Autobiography (1873)

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

Autobiography (1873)

There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.

When the land is cultivated entirely by the spade, and no horses are kept, a cow is kept for every three acres of land.

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.

On Liberty (1859)

It only refuses to admit that the sacrifice is itself a good. A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, it considers as wasted.

Utilitarianism (1861)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Stuart Mill (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.