The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race ... those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.
Philosophers
John Stuart Mill
Born in London in 1806, John Stuart Mill was a 19th-century British philosopher, political economist, and Member of Parliament who deepened utilitarian philosophy qualitatively. He introduced qualitative distinctions among pleasures beyond Bentham's quantitative calculus, and in On Liberty formulated the harm principle to define the limits of individual freedom. A pioneer of women's suffrage in The Subjection of Women, he laid the modern foundations of liberal thought.
View this figure's profile
John Stuart Mill's Other Quotes
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.
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.
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary 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.
Related Quotes
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary 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.
-- John Stuart Mill
The public sphere is a social phenomenon just as elementary as action, the actor, the group, or the collective; but it eludes the conventional sociological concepts.
-- Jürgen Habermas
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.
-- Karl Popper
Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
-- John Dewey
I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
-- Nelson Mandela
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
-- Abraham Lincoln