John Stuart Mill Evil Quotations

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates unduly over "thou shalt.

All errors which a man is likely to commit against advice are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him for his good.

The triumph of the Confederacy... would be a victory for the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the sprits of its friends all over the civilized world... [The American Civil War] is destined to be a turning point, for good or evil, of the course of human affairs.

There is a very real evil consequent on ascribing supernatural origin to the received maxilms of morality. That origin consecrates the whole of them and protects them from being discussed or criticized.

All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil.