John Stuart Mill Quotes

No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them.

All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear clothes. It is for the best

Through tattered clothes great vices do appear; Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks. Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.

Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve him to his face. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant.

Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world.

There is a schizophrenic nature in modern politics. A leader is expected to have a religious faith but he is not supposed to let it influence him in his duties. Somehow, the truths that determine everything else about his existence are not allowed to influence how he conducts himself in public life. Not only that, his principles are usually considered so personal that the public is not even allowed to know for certain what they are. This passes for noble statecraft in our time. It was once thought cowardice.

It is because we are all impostors that we endure each other. The man who does not consent to lie will see the earth shrink under his feet: we are biologically obliged to the false

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

In youth, it is common to measure right and wrong by the opinion of the world, and in age, to act without any measure but interest, and to lose shame without substituting virtue.

You are what you are. It is my opinion that trouble in the world comes from people who do not know what they are, and pretend to be something they're not.

Observance of customs and laws can very easily be a cloak for a lie so subtle that our fellow human beings are unable to detect it.

A man can be a Christian or a patriot, but he can't legally be a Christian and a patriot - except in the usual way: one of the two with the mouth, the other with the heart.

Don't talk like one of them. You're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve. -The Joker

I'm very clear about what I believe.

As for Clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility.

Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it.

If all fools wore white hoods, any crowd would look like a field of blooming buckwheat.

Good-fellowship, unflagging, is the prime requisite for success in our society, and the man or woman who smiles only for reasons of humor or pleasure is a deviate.

Had he been willing to live a hypocrite, he would have been respectable, he at least could have died surrounded by other hypocrites, and at his death there would have been an imposing funeral, with miles of carriages, filled with hypocrites, and above his hypocritical dust there would have been a hypocritical monument covered with lies.

Men chase by night those they will not greet by day.

Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concerns.

Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo.

The same principle that forbids me to lie does not allow me to tell the truth.