John Stuart Mill Quotes About Purpose

Quotes about: Purpose

• The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

  John Stuart Mill

  War, Power, Libertarian Party

  On Liberty ch. 1 (1859)

• A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.

  John Stuart Mill

  Men, Hands, Order

  'On Liberty' (1859) ch. 5

• Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.

  John Stuart Mill

  Destiny, Men, Purpose

  John Stuart Mill (1865). “On Liberty”, p.11

• History shows that great economic and social forces flow like a tide over communities only half conscious of that which is befalling them. Wise statesmen foresee what time is thus bringing, and try to shape institutions and mold men's thoughts and purposes in accordance with the change that is silently coming on. The unwise are those who bring nothing constructive to the process, and who greatly imperil the future of mankind by leaving great questions to be fought out between ignorant change on one hand and ignorant opposition to change on the other.

  John Stuart Mill

  Wise, Men, Hands

• If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a happier or a better population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.

  John Stuart Mill

  Long, Support, Earth

  John Stuart Mill (1848). “Principles of political economy with some of their applications to social philosophy”, p.317

• When a thing is bought not for its use but for its costliness, cheapness is no recommendation. As Sismondi remarks, the consequence of cheapening articles of vanity, is not that less is expended on such things, but that the buyers substitute for the cheapened article some other which is more costly, or a more elaborate quality of the same thing; and as the inferior quality answered the purpose of vanity equally well when it was equally expensive, a tax on the article is really paid by nobody: it is a creation of public revenue by which nobody loses.

  John Stuart Mill

  Vanity, Quality, Purpose

  John Stuart Mill (1862). “Principles of Political Economy, with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy”, p.460

• There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.

  John Stuart Mill

  Opportunity, Differences, Purpose

  Source: www.usconstitution.net

• War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice - is often the means of their regeneration.

  John Stuart Mill

  War, Mean, Patriotic

  John Stuart Mill (1867). “Thoughts on parliamentary reform. Recent writers on reform. Bain's psychology. A few words on non-intervention. The contest in America. Austin on jurisprudence. Plato”, p.204

• Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action.

  John Stuart Mill

  Liberty, Purpose, Action

  Source: www.usconstitution.net

• Since reasoning , or inference, the principal subject of logic, is an operation which usually takes place by means of words , and in complicated cases can take place in no other way: those who have not a thorough insight into both the signification and purpose of words, will be under chances, amounting almost to certainty, of reasoning or inferring incorrectly.

  John Stuart Mill

  Mean, Way, Purpose

  John Stuart Mill (2016). “A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive: Mill's Works”, p.20, VM eBooks

• Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life.

  John Stuart Mill

  Purpose, Chance, Ends

  John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle (2010). “Autobiography of J.S. Mill & on Liberty; Characteristics, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh & Sir Walter Scott”, p.94, Cosimo, Inc.

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