John Stuart Mill

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 vigour, and moral courage it contained.

The government of a country by a bureaucracy is an evil of the first magnitude.

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

The subjection of women is a standing disgrace to Europe.

Justice is a name for certain moral requirements, which, regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale of social utility, and are therefore of more paramount obligation, than any others.

Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance.

The only security against error is in the discussion of every subject, with the greatest freedom of speech.

The world would be a gainer if it were more generally understood that the present moral education of mankind is of a very imperfect kind.

Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as individuality exists under it; and 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.

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion.

The greatest danger to the freedom of thought and discussion is not the government, but the tyranny of the majority.

The only way to ascertain the truth of an opinion is to permit its free expression.

To suppose that society can dispense with principles of justice, because it is of opinion that they are not founded on objective truth, is to believe that society is founded on objective truth, which is a contradiction in terms.

The love of money is the root of all evil: but the love of liberty is the root of all good.

The principle of utility is capable of receiving proof, only by showing that the only things desirable as ends are happiness and freedom from pain.

The only freedom which consists in doing what one likes, without regard to the tastes and feelings of other people, is not freedom at all.

Most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in a great degree reduced in bulk.

The power of education to make men what they are, is almost boundless.

The whole of mankind has a right to the benefit of the best ideas, which can only be produced by freedom of thought.

The only source of improvement is liberty, combined with the power of individuals to think for themselves.