John Stuart Mill Quotes About Desire

Quotes about: Desire

• Liberty consists in doing what one desires.

  John Stuart Mill

  Philosophical, Desire, Liberty

  On Liberty ch. 5 (1859)

• I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

  John Stuart Mill

  Inspirational, Happiness, Being Happy

  "The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health". "The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health", Vol. LXXXV, p. 170, September, 1887.

• Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.

  John Stuart Mill

  Men, Desire, Rich

• It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

  John Stuart Mill

  Strong, Men, Desire

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.196, Hackett Publishing

• The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; type people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power.

  John Stuart Mill

  Mean, Numbers, People

• A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.

  John Stuart Mill

  Ambition, Government, Political

  John Stuart Mill (1848). “Principles of political economy with some of their applications to social philosophy”, p.523

• In proportion as the people are accustomed to manage their affairs by their own active intervention, instead of leaving them to the government, their desires will turn to repelling tyranny, rather than to tyrannizing: while in proportion as all ready initiative and direction resides in the government, and individuals habitually feel and act as under its perpetual tutelage, popular institutions develop in them not the desire of freedom, but an unmeasured appetite for place and power.

  John Stuart Mill

  Government, People, Leaving

• A person whose desires and impulses are his own - are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture - is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character.

  John Stuart Mill

  Character, Expression, Desire

  John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.59, OUP Oxford

• The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear from thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.

  John Stuart Mill

  Effort, Desire, Human Nature

  John Stuart Mill (1866). “Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy”, p.453

• What a country wants to make it richer is never consumption, but production. Where there is the latter, we may be sure that there is no want of the former. To produce, implies that the producer de_sires to consume; why else should he give himself useless labor? He may not wish to consume what he himself produces, but his motive for producing and selling is the desire to buy. Therefore, if the producers generally produce and sell more and more, they certainly also buy more and more.

  John Stuart Mill

  Country, Giving, Wish

  John Stuart Mill (2007). “Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy”, p.46, Cosimo, Inc.

• The sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.

  John Stuart Mill

  People, Desire, Produce

  1863 Utilitarianism, ch.4.

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