Quotes From J.S. Mill's On Liberty
"But now society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the
danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency,
of personal impulses and preferences. ... Thus the mind itself is bowed to
the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first
thing thought of; they like in crowds; they exercise choice only among
things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are
shunned equally with crimes..." p.62
"Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity
a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that
people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and
where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity
in a society has been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour,
and moral courage, which it contained. That so few now dare to be
eccentric, marks the chief danger of our time." p.67
"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." p.20
"But 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." p.20
"Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong
mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it
ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than
many kinds of political oppression, since, though usually not upheld by
such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much
more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself." p.8
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