The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors.
Men might as well be imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread.
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.
All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.
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.
The person 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.
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.
Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.
There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.
Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.
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.
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
All action is for the sake of some end; and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and color from the end to which they are subservient.