John Stuart Mill Quotes

Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness.

But they who are unconcerned about the consequences of their actions are not therefore unconcerned about their actions.

You know what's wrong with humanity?... The greatest gift we were given is our free will, and we keep misusing it.

It's easy to explain away evil. We have a free choice, and our greatest blessing is also our greatest curse, because I don't always make good choices. Other people make bad choices. I make bad choices. And sometimes we hurt other people. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.

If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action

They are focused on whether they can do something. They never think whether they should do something.

It is up to us to make the right choice and the right decisions.

I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.

Everyone has to make their own decisions. I still believe in that. You just have to be able to accept the consequences without complaining.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action?

We have to believe in free will. We’ve got no choice.

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

You are responsible for the choices you make in this life period, end of story.

Everythings a choice. Nobody's born good. Nobody's born evil. It's always a choice.

The Hebrew word, the word timshel - 'Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open...Why, that makes a man great...He can choose his course and fight it through and win...I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'. ch 24

Mankind's greatest gift... is that we have free choice.

Reason can no more influence the will, and operate as a motive, than the eyes which show a man his road can enable him to move from place to place, or that a ship provided with a compass can sail without a wind.

Man has a choice and it's a choice that makes him a man.

To choose evil is to choose freedom, emancipation from all restraint.

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

The choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

You are free to choose. You are not free not to choose. No choice is a choice. You are free to choose but you are not free to choose the consequences of that choice.