The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called.
- Topic: Freedom, Liberty
- Location: Arches National Park
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from John Stuart Mill
Actions are right in proportion as they promote happiness, wrong as the produce the reverse.
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.
There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.
In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.
More Quotes from Arches National Park
More on These Topics
The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.
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.
Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.
What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
Never cross a man, not afraid to die.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of the people to peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. -First Amendment
The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.
You find out the necessity of Liberty as you find out the necessity of air—by not having enough of it.
The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.
The overwhelming importance of the atmosphere means that there are no longer any frontiers to defend against pollution, attack, or propaganda. It means, further, that only by a deep patriotic devotion to one’s country can there be a hope of the kind of protection of the whole planet, which is necessary for the survival of the people of other countries.
I rebel; therefore I exist.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
Freedom ultimately means the right of the other people to do things you don’t approve of.
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.
There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most impressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be saturated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.