The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. |
The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine. |
The duty of man is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of all other things, namely not to follow it but to amend it. |
The feeling of a direct responsibility of the individual to God is almost wholly a creation of Protestantism |
The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind |
The great creative individual. . . is capable of more wisdom and virtue than collective man ever can be. |
The idea that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods, which most experience refutes. History is teeming with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries. |
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. |
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. |
The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. |
The most important thing women have to do is to stir up the zeal of women themselves. |
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. |
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. |
The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses. |
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. |