The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.

John Stuart Mill

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

John Stuart Mill

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.

John Stuart Mill

The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.

John Stuart Mill

Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon as there is no enemy in the field.

John Stuart Mill

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

John Stuart Mill

If any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

John Stuart Mill

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds?

John Stuart Mill

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

John Stuart Mill

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

John Stuart Mill

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

John Stuart Mill

He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.

John Stuart Mill