John Stuart Mill

"The human capacity for intellectual, moral, and aesthetic self-improvement should be the ultimate measure of a society's success."

"There is no reason whatever why he who does not wish to enter into the practice of law should be allowed to rob those of the benefits who do wish to do so."

"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests."

"I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage."

"Everything is governed by causes and effects."

"Action is noble, to refrain from action is still nobler sometimes."

"Character is built by repeated effort and practice."

"The free pursuit of happiness is man's natural right."

"The deeper the knowledge the more profound the mystique becomes."

"We cannot see any more of a state than such demonstrations of it as we have been able to make."

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

"There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow."

"Slavery is as wicked when exercised by many upon the few as when exercised by the few upon the many."

"A sound argument preserves the logical form through any substitution of its variables."

"Religion is essentially the belief in an ever living God."

"Despondency is not always a sign of humility."

"The true conception of the end of government is the happiness of the people."

"Society should allow human nature to develop itself according to its own laws."

"How little it is possible to know of a person without conversing with him!"

"Individuality is the same thing with development; it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings."

"Wars, persecutions, and famines are the main topics of history."

"In the case of a person whose desires and impulses are his own—are the expression of his own nature—to whatever the state of perfection—his own mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best in itself, but because it is his own mode."

"The great redeeming principle of human history is the perfectibility of man."

"I have always thought that the most important and most dangerous of all actions is one which prevents or restricts the possibilities of human development."

"Energy is a new field of being in which all phenomena grow and wax, develop and flourish and decay and diminish."

"It is no wonder that mankind should be fond of those whom they have injured."

"The law touches but a few of the cases in which immorality, without direct or obvious public mischief, really exists."

"The laws and the whole of political, civil, and domestic relations are such as to be maintained and sustained by the usage and conduct of mankind."

"Most people exist, but do not live."

"We are always doing our neighbours wrong and calling it charity."