John Stuart Mill

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as read more

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.

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy read more

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if read more

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.