John Stuart Mill Quotes About Genius

Quotes about: Genius

• If all mankind minus one were of one 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.

  John Stuart Mill

  Freedom, Philosophy, Differences

  On Liberty ch. 2 (1859)

• Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.

  John Stuart Mill

  Order, Soil, Minorities

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.200, Hackett Publishing

• Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.

  John Stuart Mill

  Atmosphere, Genius, Breathe

  John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.65, Cambridge University Press

• In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. 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 generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.

  John Stuart Mill

  Character, Order, Break Through

  John Stuart Mill (2003). “Mill's On Liberty”, p.81, Agora Publications, Inc.

• The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

  John Stuart Mill

  Courage, Vigor, Genius

  John Stuart Mill (2012). “On Liberty”, p.56, Courier Corporation

• Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people - less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their character.

  John Stuart Mill

  Character, Small Numbers, Order

  John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.129, OUP Oxford

• It often happens that the universal belief of one age of mankind — a belief from which no one was, nor without an extraordinary effort of genius and courage, could at that time be free — becomes to a subsequent age so palpable an absurdity, that the only difficulty then is to imagine how such a thing can ever have appeared credible.

  John Stuart Mill

  Ideas, Effort, Age

  "Collected Works: Principles of political economy".

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