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Considerations on Representative Government QUOTES

Considerations on Representative Government QUOTES

1 " To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

2 " The test of real and vigorous thinking, the thinking which ascertains truths instead of dreaming dreams, is successful application to practice. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

3 " It is true that a great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them. But it is a great mistake to suppose that he will do this better for being ignorant of the traditions. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

4 " It is an adherent condition of human affairs that no intention, however sincere, of protecting the interests of others can make it safe or salutary to tie up their own hands. Still more obviously true is it, that by their own hands only can any positive and durable improvement of their circumstances in life be worked out. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

5 " It also appears to me that when prejudices persist obstinately, it is the fault of nobody so much as of those who make a point of proclaiming them insuperable, as an excuse to themselves for never joining in an attempt to remove them. Any prejudice whatever will be insurmountable if those who do not share it themselves truckle to it, and flatter it, and accept it as a law of nature. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

6 " No one but a fool, and only a fool of a peculiar description, feels offended by the acknowledgment that there are others whose opinion, and even whose wish, is entitled to a greater amount of consideration than his. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

7 " We are next informed that bookworms, a term which seems to be held applicable to whoever has the smallest tincture of book-knowledge, may not be good at bodily exercises, or have the habits of gentlemen. This is a very common line of remark with dunces of condition; but whatever the dunces may think, they have no monopoly of either gentlemanly habits or bodily activity. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

8 " Every one knows how absurd it would be to infer from what a man is or does when in a private station, that he will be and do exactly the like when a despot on a throne; where the bad parts of his human nature, instead of being restrained and kept in subordination by every circumstance of his life and by every person surrounding him, are courted by all persons, and ministered to by all circumstances. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

9 " We know how easily the uselessness of almost every branch of knowledge may be proved to the complete satisfaction of those who do not possess it. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

10 " There are nations in whom the passion for governing others is so much stronger than the desire of personal independence, that for the mere shadow of the one they are found ready to sacrifice the whole of the other. Each one of their number is willing, like the private soldier in an army, to abdicate his personal freedom of action into the hands of his general, provided the army is triumphant and victorious, and he is able to flatter himself that he is one of a conquering host, though the notion that he has himself any share in the domination exercised over the conquered is an illusion. A government strictly limited in its powers and attributions, required to hold its hands from overmeddling, and to let most things go on without its assuming the part of guardian or director, is not to the taste of such a people. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

11 " Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.
... it is in general a necessary condition of free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities. "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

12 " Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government

13 " It is what men think, that determines how they act "

― John Stuart Mill , Considerations on Representative Government