# On Liberty  ## Metadata - Author: [[John Stuart Mill]] - Full Title: On Liberty - Category: #books ## Highlights - He wrote articles on an infinite variety of subjects, political, metaphysical, philosophic, religious, poetical. ([Location 20](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=20)) - It was Mill's custom to write the whole of a book so as to get his general scheme complete, and then laboriously to re-write it in order to perfect the phrases and the composition. ([Location 100](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=100)) - distinction. ([Location 112](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=112)) - Social Liberty: ([Location 199](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=199)) - struggle between Liberty and Authority ([Location 203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=203)) - By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. ([Location 205](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=205)) - this limitation was what they meant by liberty. ([Location 214](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=214)) - First, ([Location 215](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=215)) - second, ([Location 217](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=217)) - constitutional checks; ([Location 217](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=217)) - The nation did not need to be protected against its own will. ([Location 231](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=231)) - nation's own power, concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. ([Location 233](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=233)) - success discloses faults ([Location 238](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=238)) - The "people" who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; ([Location 245](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=245)) - government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest. ([Location 247](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=247)) - "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. ([Location 253](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=253)) - there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; ([Location 260](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=260)) - There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: ([Location 263](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=263)) - it is still only many people's liking instead of one. ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=282)) - Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority. ([Location 288](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=288)) - People decide according to their personal preferences. ([Location 331](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=331)) - the interference of ([Location 338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=338)) - government is, with about equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly condemned. ([Location 338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=338)) - The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, ([Location 339](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=339)) - That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. ([Location 341](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=341)) - regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. ([Location 362](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=362)) - Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. ([Location 396](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=396)) - Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions of personal, as of social excellence. ([Location 399](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=399)) - there is also in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, ([Location 414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=414)) - fellow-citizens to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, ([Location 418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=418)) - mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, ([Location 444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=444)) - the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; ([Location 447](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=447)) - All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. ([Location 455](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=455)) - the world, to each individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact; ([Location 463](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=463)) - and never impose them upon others unless they are quite sure of being right. ([Location 479](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=479)) - Men, and governments, must act to the best of their ability. ([Location 484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=484)) - We may, and must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own conduct: ([Location 485](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=485)) - assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. ([Location 488](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=488)) - steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, ([Location 508](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=508)) - the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. ([Location 530](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=530)) - The usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion: ([Location 539](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=539)) - There can be no fair discussion of the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital may be employed on one side, but not on the other. ([Location 548](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=548)) - it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for others, ([Location 558](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=558)) - that persecution is an ordeal through which truth ought to pass, and always passes successfully, legal penalties being, in the end, powerless against truth, ([Location 619](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=619)) - A theory which maintains that truth may justifiably be persecuted because persecution cannot possibly do it any harm, ([Location 622](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=622)) - the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods ([Location 633](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=633)) - experience refutes. ([Location 635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=635)) - History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. ([Location 635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=635)) - Persecution has always succeeded, save where the heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted. ([Location 640](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=640)) - It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error, ([Location 642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=642)) - a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honour); ([Location 664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=664)) - For if he who does not believe in a future state, necessarily lies, it follows that they who do believe are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by the fear of hell. ([Location 671](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=671)) - the revival of religion, is always, in narrow and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; ([Location 679](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=679)) - the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. ([Location 701](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=701)) - who does not recognise, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. ([Location 719](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=719)) - during all three the yoke of authority was broken. ([Location 733](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=733)) - Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth. ([Location 748](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=748)) - The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left it on record that he always studied his adversary's case with as great, if not with still greater, intensity than even his own. ([Location 764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=764)) - He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. ([Location 766](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=766)) - Whenever conduct is concerned, they look round for Mr. A and B to direct them how far to go in obeying Christ. ([Location 857](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=857)) - The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. ([Location 878](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=878)) - Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a question of the reconciling and combining of opposites, ([Location 955](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=955)) - Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: ([Location 983](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=983)) - a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognised, is that of obedience. ([Location 998](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=998)) - in an imperfect state of the human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity of opinions. ([Location 1016](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1016)) - freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; ([Location 1036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1036)) - First, ([Location 1036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1036)) - Secondly, ([Location 1038](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1038)) - rarely or never the whole truth, ([Location 1039](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1039)) - Thirdly, ([Location 1040](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1040)) - The worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatise those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men. ([Location 1062](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1062)) - even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. ([Location 1115](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1115)) - The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. ([Location 1121](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1121)) - carry his opinions into practice at his own cost. ([Location 1123](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1123)) - The majority, being satisfied with the ways of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are), cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for everybody; ([Location 1137](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1137)) - individuality of power and development;" ([Location 1145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1145)) - No one's idea of excellence in conduct is that people ([Location 1149](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1149)) - should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. ([Location 1150](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1150)) - He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. ([Location 1162](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1162)) - He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. ([Location 1168](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1168)) - But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences. ([Location 1203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1203)) - All the good of which humanity is capable, is comprised in Obedience. ([Location 1218](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1218)) - In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. ([Location 1241](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1241)) - Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. ([Location 1271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1271)) - Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. ([Location 1272](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1272)) - Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. ([Location 1283](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1283)) - all good things which exist are the fruits of originality, ([Location 1287](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1287)) - At present individuals are lost in the crowd. ([Location 1292](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1292)) - The initiation of all wise or noble things, comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one individual. ([Location 1302](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1302)) - it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. ([Location 1313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1313)) - That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. ([Location 1315](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1315)) - If a person possesses any tolerable amount of common-sense and experience, his own mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best in itself, but because it is his own mode. ([Location 1320](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1320)) - The greatness of England is now all collective: ([Location 1358](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1358)) - The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, ([Location 1360](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1360)) - A people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then stop: when does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality. ([Location 1373](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1373)) - despotism of custom ([Location 1375](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1375)) - does not preclude change, provided all change together. ([Location 1375](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1375)) - persuading or forcing other people to be as good as ourselves. ([Location 1381](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1381)) - It is individuality that we war against: ([Location 1382](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1382)) - modern régime of public opinion ([Location 1393](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1393)) - Europe is, in my judgment, wholly indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and many-sided development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese ideal of making all people alike. ([Location 1402](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1402)) - education brings people under common influences, ([Location 1413](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1413)) - The combination of all these causes forms so great a mass of influences hostile to Individuality, ([Location 1423](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1423)) - Mankind speedily become unable to conceive diversity, when they have been for some time unaccustomed to see it. ([Location 1429](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1429)) - How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society? ([Location 1447](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1447)) - every one who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, ([Location 1451](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1451)) - first, ([Location 1453](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1453)) - secondly, ([Location 1454](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1454)) - He is the person most interested in his own well-being: ([Location 1473](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1473)) - We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. ([Location 1495](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1495)) - for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. ([Location 1496](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1496)) - No person is an entirely isolated being; ([Location 1539](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1539)) - There must be some length of time and amount of experience, after which a moral or prudential truth may be regarded as established: ([Location 1556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1556)) - duty to the public, ([Location 1575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1575)) - fanatical moral intolerance of the Puritans. ([Location 1596](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1596)) - But the strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the public with purely personal conduct, is that when it does interfere, the odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place. ([Location 1601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1601)) - On questions of social morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the public, that is, of an overruling majority, though often wrong, is likely to be still oftener right; because on such questions they are only required to judge of their own interests; of the manner in which some mode of conduct, if allowed to be practised, would affect themselves. ([Location 1603](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1603)) - Note: Majority rule,even it affects those deciding, does not make it right. The individual will pay a small price to get others to involuntarily share his burden. - considering only their own preference. ([Location 1608](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1608)) - It is known that the bad workmen who form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry, are decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as good, and that no one ought to be allowed, through piecework or otherwise, to earn by superior skill or industry more than others can without it. ([Location 1677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1677)) - A theory of "social rights," ([Location 1706](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1706)) - So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty; ([Location 1709](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1709)) - it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that of holding opinions in secret, ([Location 1710](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1710)) - the amusement of some is the day's work of others; ([Location 1721](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1721)) - I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilised. ([Location 1759](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1759)) - The maxims ([Location 1781](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1781)) - the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. ([Location 1781](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1781)) - that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable ([Location 1784](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1784)) - it is, by common admission, better for the general interest of mankind, that persons should pursue their objects undeterred by this sort of consequences. ([Location 1791](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1791)) - it is now recognised, though not till after a long struggle, that both the cheapness and the good quality of commodities are most effectually provided for by leaving the producers and sellers perfectly free, ([Location 1797](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1797)) - doctrine of Free Trade, ([Location 1800](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1800)) - all restraint, quâ restraint, is an evil: ([Location 1801](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1801)) - the principle of individual liberty is not involved in the doctrine of Free Trade, ([Location 1803](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1803)) - Note: I think I might disagree with this point. - new question; the proper limits of what may be called the functions of police; ([Location 1812](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1812)) - undisputed functions of government to take precautions against crime ([Location 1813](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1813)) - "preappointed evidence." ([Location 1833](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1833)) - acts which, being directly injurious only to the agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, ([Location 1852](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1852)) - Note: How do we decide which crimes are injurious only to the actor which are injurious to the public at large. - Fornication, for example, must be tolerated, and so must gambling; but should a person be free to be a pimp, or to keep a gambling-house? ([Location 1869](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1869)) - It is only because the institutions of this country are a mass of inconsistencies, that things find admittance into our practice which belong to the system of despotic, or what is called paternal, government, ([Location 1922](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1922)) - The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. ([Location 1939](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1939)) - owing to the absence of any recognised general principles, liberty ([Location 1966](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1966)) - is often granted where it should be withheld, as well as withheld where it should be granted; ([Location 1967](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1967)) - Note: Can liberty be granted. Is it not part of natural law? - Is it not almost a self-evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the education, up to a certain standard, of every human being who is born its citizen? ([Location 1979](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1979)) - Note: I question that. - The objections which are urged with reason against State education, do not apply to the enforcement of education by the State, but to the State's taking upon itself to direct that education; which is a totally different thing. ([Location 1994](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=1994)) - Note: When the state enforced education, it still causes market distortions. Do parents pay for education because it has value to they or simply to avoid penalty. We do not know what they value. - it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. ([Location 2000](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=2000)) - society in general is in so backward a state that it could not or would not provide for itself any proper institutions of education, ([Location 2002](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004UJ8LVM&location=2002)) - Note: If this were the case, where does government get the money to pay for education?