John Stuart Mill

"Life has a much greater capacity to produce good to mankind if we would only cease to make it so difficult."

"The preservation of truth requires constant vigilance against the encroachment of prejudice and error."

"Our notion of the perfect man is the man of practical genius."

"The tendency to undervalue thought and overvalue action is a sign of an impoverished civilization."

"Virtue is not some distant ideal; it is the sum of our daily choices and actions."

"Nothing is ever really lost when a man preserves the integrity of his thought."

"A true patriot is one who will sacrifice his own interests for the good of his country."

"The development of new ideas and the criticism of old ones must go hand in hand."

"Society gains more from the man who thinks for himself than from a hundred who merely follow."

"The pursuit of truth is the only pursuit worthy of the highest human faculties."

"Suffering and sacrifice can be ennobling, or they can be merely destructive; it depends upon our response to them."

"The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."

"It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied; better to be an unhappy human being than a happy pig; and better to be an unhappy Socrates than a happy fool."

"Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."

"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs."

"A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."

"He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation."

"The opinion that any of our beliefs are absolutely certain, or any of our pleasures are unbounded, appears to me wholly unwarranted."

"It is proper to say a person is of cultivated intellect, who has a well-developed faculty for analysis."

"There is no greater discovery than knowing oneself, and no greater task than perfecting oneself."

"The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it."

"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."

"Custom is the deadweight of human society, and the enemy of all improvement."

"The human capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but human inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

"Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded."

"The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind."

"A man of talent, when he comes into the world, has often to wait a considerable period before he can find his appropriate place."

"All good things which exist are the fruits of originality."

"The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants."

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