On Liberty

per­son who shows rash­ness, ob­stin­acy, self-con­ceit—who can­not live within mod­er­ate means—who can­not re­strain him­self from hurt­ful in­dul­gences—who pur­sues an­imal pleas­ures at the ex­pense of those of feel­ing and in­tel­lect—must ex­pect to be lowered in the opin­ion of oth­ers, and to have a less share of their fa­vour­able sen­ti­ments; but of this he has no right to com­plain, un­less he has mer­ited their fa­vour by spe­cial ex­cel­lence in his so­cial re­la­tions, and has thus es­tab­lished a title to their good of­fices, which is not af­fected by his de­mer­its to­wards him­self.

To be held to ri­gid rules of justice for the sake of oth­ers, de­vel­ops the feel­ings and ca­pa­cit­ies which have the good of oth­ers for their ob­ject. But to be re­strained in things not af­fect­ing their good, by their mere dis­pleas­ure, de­vel­ops noth­ing valu­able, ex­cept such force of char­ac­ter as may un­fold it­self in res­ist­ing the re­straint. If ac­qui­esced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any fair-play to the nature of each, it is es­sen­tial that dif­fer­ent per­sons should be al­lowed to lead dif­fer­ent lives.

He who does any­thing be­cause it is the cus­tom, makes no choice. He gains no prac­tice either in dis­cern­ing or in de­sir­ing what is best. The men­tal and moral, like the mus­cu­lar powers, are im­proved only by be­ing used. The fac­ulties are called into no ex­er­cise by do­ing a thing merely be­cause oth­ers do it, no more than by be­liev­ing a thing only be­cause oth­ers be­lieve it. If the grounds of an opin­ion are not con­clus­ive to the per­son’s own reason, his reason can­not be strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by his ad­opt­ing it: and if the in­duce­ments to an act are not such as are con­sentan­eous to his own feel­ings and char­ac­ter (where af­fec­tion, or the rights of oth­ers, are not con­cerned), it is so much done to­wards ren­der­ing his feel­ings and char­ac­ter in­ert and tor­pid, in­stead of act­ive and en­er­getic.

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 ape­like one of im­it­a­tion. He who chooses his plan for him­self, em­ploys all his fac­ulties. He must use ob­ser­va­tion to see, reas­on­ing and judg­ment to fore­see, activ­ity to gather ma­ter­i­als for de­cision, dis­crim­in­a­tion to de­cide, and when he has de­cided, firm­ness and self-con­trol to hold to his de­lib­er­ate de­cision.