John Stuart Mill Quotes

I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security - out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction.

Lazy people tend not to take chances, but express themselves by tearing down other's work.

My ego is sated.

Success is seductive. It can make one complacent and inefficient and stale.

Sometimes success can bring complacency.

Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

Envy is the religion of the mediocre

"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters.

He lay on his chair with his hands clasped above his paunch not reading, or sleeping, but basking like a creature gorged with existence.

The vision of the left, full of envy and resentment, takes its worst toll on those at the bottom - whether black or white - who find in that paranoid vision an excuse for counterproductive and ultimately self-destructive attitudes and behavior.

One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people - I categorize them as life's losers - who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I'm concerned, if they had any real ability, they wouldn't be fighting me, they'd be doing something constructive themselves.

There are times in my life when I let myself get consumed with jealously for someone else's life, their body, their wardrobe, their talent. They call it the green-eyed monster for a reason. It's a self destructive and when it's in the room, it consumes you. Be strong and don't focus on what other people have.

Pride is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of others

It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle.

Those who think he had lucky breaks are not only unaware of the real story but also fall prey to that sin of the mediocre: bitchiness about others’ success

If you decide to just go with the flow, you'll end up where the flow goes, which is usually downhill, often leading to a big pile of sludge and a life of unhappiness. You'll end up doing what everyone else is doing.

The man who counts his hours and kicks about his salary is a self-elected failure.

The form most contradictory to human life that can appear among the human species is the "self-satisfied man."

Negativity is basically laziness.

The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history.

Success is one of the worst enemies of success, because success tends to breed complacency and lack of humility.

Contentment is a kind of moral laziness; if there wasn't anything but contentment in his world, man wouldn't be any more of a success than an angleworm is

The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.

Self-approval is a dangerous state of mind.

Indolence, languid as it is, often masters both passions and virtues.