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.

Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.

Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.

Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.

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 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.

The only part of the conduct of any one, 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 most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.