Athens, Greece -20071. “All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.”
2. “[A] man and still more the woman, who can be accused either of doing "what nobody does," or of not doing "what everybody does," is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency.”
3. “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”
4. “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”
5. “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.”
6. "Human existence is girt round with mystery; the narrow region of our experiences is a small island in the midst of a boundless sea."
7. ”If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind.”
8. "In the case of any person whose judgement is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself...the fallacy of what was fallacious.”
9. “Liberty consists in doing what one desires.”
10. "Judging by common sense is merely another phrase for judging by first appearances; and everyone who has mixed among mankind with any capacity for observing them, knows that the men who place implicit faith in their own common sense, are, without any exception, the most wrong-headed and impracticable persons with whom he has ever had to deal."
11. “No stronger case can be shown for prohibiting anything which is regarded as a personal immorality, than is made out for suppressing these practices in the eyes of those who regard them as impieties; and unless we are willing to adopt the logic of persecutors, and to say that we may persecute others because we are right, and that they must not persecute us because they are wrong, we must be aware of admitting a principle of which we should resent as a gross injustice the application to ourselves.”
12. "One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interest."
13. “That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.”
14. “That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.”
15. “The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.”
16. ”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.”
17. “The great creative individual. . . is capable of more wisdom and virtue than collective man ever can be.”
18. “The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not
attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”
19. ”The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
20. “There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realised until personal experience has brought it home.”
21. “There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life.”
22. “There is one characteristic of the present direction of public opinion, peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of any marked demonstration of individuality. The general average of mankind are not only moderate in intellect, but also moderate in inclinations: they have no tastes or wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and they consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down upon.”
23. “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self- protection. 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 a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil in someone else. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
24. "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
25. "The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it."
26. “They who know how to employ opportunities will often find that they can create them; and what we can achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess than on the use we make of our time.”
27. “Though the practice of chivalry fell even more sadly short of its theoretic standard than practice generally falls below theory, it remains one of the most precious monuments of the moral history of our race, as a remarkable instance of a concerted and organized attempt by a most disorganized and distracted society, to raise up and carry into practice a moral ideal greatly in advance of its social condition and institutions; so much so as to have been completely frustrated in the main object, yet never entirely inefficacious, and which has left a most sensible, and for the most part a highly valuable impress on the ideas and feelings of all subsequent times.”
28. “To understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman.”
29. “Truth gains more even by errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.”
30. “Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.”
31. "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."
32. "Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called."
