We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
- Topic: Communication, Conflict
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from John Stuart Mill
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.
I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
Actions are right in proportion as they promote happiness, wrong as the produce the reverse.
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Understanding a question is half an answer.
After all, the only proper intoxication is conversation.
People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.
Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think.
On his tongue they pour sweet dew, and from his mouth flow gentle words.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg crackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
One of the most pathetic—and dangerous—signs of our times is the growing number of individuals and groups who believe that no one can possibly disagree with them for any honest reason.
We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind's last chance between chaos and community.
No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it, so hill and house could live together each the happier for the other.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarters, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.
