John Stuart Mill

Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and read more

Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians.

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society read more

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 vigor, and moral courage which it contained.

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.

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.