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John Stuart Mill

20 May 1806-8 May 1873

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Atheism is ubiquitous. The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments in intelligence, wisdom, and virtue are complete skeptics in religion.

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Bureaucracy is an essential component of any effective system of representative government and a modern professional bureaucracy must be balanced with democracy.

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Capitalism is the selfish desire for profit which (most of the time) results in the material welfare (and thus happiness) of society as a whole.

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Censorship is a peculiar evil in that it robs both those who dissent from the opinion (it steals from them the possibility to reveal that the censored view is the correct view to hold), and still more from those who hold the view of the censor (because they sacrifice the lively impression of truth produced by its collision with error).

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Censorship is most harmful to those who disagree with the thing censored because it sacrifices the clear and lively impression of truth that is produced by its collision with error.

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Censorship is a great evil, for 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.

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Democracy is a legal system of communicative interaction in which knowledge is passed from one citizen to another making each a protagonist of social and political life, willing to revise opinions and adapt to new circumstances.

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Democracy is a way of life, characterized by openness, liberty, education, criticism and collective action.

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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.

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Free speech is worth protecting because constructing a marketplace of ideas is instrumental to arriving at and appreciating truth, and in part because the marketplace is essential in helping individuals to find a lifestyle that is personally congenial, thus increasing their personal happiness.

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Freedom is the pursuing of personal good in one's own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to attain it.

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Government 1s 2roper role is to prevent other people from harming an individual. It has no right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.