John Stuart Mill

"The laws which society enacts to preserve a social system are frequently at war with the true happiness of the individual."

"If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational conviction, society has itself to blame."

"There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides."

"The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right."

"Conduct is determined by principle, and even the conduct of the virtuous is often guided by the principle of propriety rather than morality."

"None but those in whom knowledge and virtue are united can be trusted with power."

"Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think."

"The tendency of mankind to accept the belief of those about them is so strong that truth rarely gets a fair hearing."

"The person who knows only his side of the case knows little of that."

"The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interest of no one but himself."

"Progress has not consisted in the substitution of right principles for wrong, but in the gradual strengthening of right principles against wrong."

"Stupidity is much the same all the world over. In the long struggle of humanity against its baser instincts, stupidity is the ally of the vices, and is always on the side of that which is degraded and depraved."

"The true advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it."

"It is important that we should be reminded that people are happiest when they are in pursuit of their dreams, not after they have achieved them."

"A man is called unprincipled when his principles are not in agreement with the maxims approved of by the party to which he belongs."

"The principles of the market place are more important than the principles of the palace."

"Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter."

"Since the general form of the utilitarian principle is right, that of promoting happiness is right."

"The same advantages of superior strength and superior numbers are said to constitute a much more formidable obstacle to human progress than any system of morality or religion."

"The idea of progress is properly no more than a correct application of the laws of individual development to the social order."

"As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so it is that there should be different experiments of living."

"He is a person of sense and integrity who refuses to let passion override his principles."

"The social progress of a people is most accurately measured by their treatment of animals."

"All the selfish propensities, all the self-regarding vindictive emotions, were meant to have a sphere of action and sympathy, in order that they might not run to waste, for there is never a power in the human mind created to go unused."

"A person may be ever so well-educated, but if he is not trained in the practice of virtue, his knowledge is of little avail."

"The person who surrenders his freedom for security deserves neither and will lose both."

"To know oneself is the beginning of all wisdom, yet the most difficult task that any human can undertake."

"In proportion as the strength of a man's intellect is greater, so is his capacity for both greater good and greater evil."

"The tyranny of opinion is as real as that of any monarch, though less formidable because it leaves fewer means of resistance."

"The privilege of any man may be the right of every man; and upon this principle alone can universal freedom be established."