On Liberty

by John Stuart Mill

The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty.

A time, however, came in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves.

some persons began to think that too much importance had been attached to the limitation of the power itself.

The notion, that the people have no need to limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic,

this, as against any other abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of government over individuals, loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein.

there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them;

All that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.

Yet the people of any given age and country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject on which mankind had always been agreed.