# Quote — John Stuart Mill, Autobiography

> In this third period (as it may be termed) of my mental progress, which now went hand in hand with hers, my opinions gained equally in breadth and depth, I understood more things, and those which I had understood before, I now understood more thoroughly. I had now completely turned back from what there had been of excess in my reaction against Benthamism. I had, at the height of that reaction, certainly become much more indulgent to the common opinions of society and the world, and more willing to be content with seconding the superficial improvement which had begun to take place in those common opinions, than became one whose convictions on so many points, differed fundamentally from them. I was much more inclined, than I can now approve, to put in abeyance the more decidedly heretical part of my opinions, which I now look upon as almost the only ones, the assertion of which tends in any way to regenerate society.

- Author: [John Stuart Mill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill.md)
- Book: [Autobiography](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography.md)
- Page: 230
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._7:_General_View_of_the_Remainder_of_My_Life.) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/in-this-third

## More from this book

> The practical reformer has continually to demand that changes be made in things which are supported by powerful and widely-spread feelings, or to question the apparent necessity and indefeasibleness of established facts; and it is often an indispensable part of his argument to show, how these powerful feelings had their origin, and how those facts came to seem necessary and indefeasible. There is therefore a natural hostility between him and a philosophy which discourages the explanation of feelings and moral facts by circumstances and association, and prefers to treat them as ultimate elements of human nature; a philosophy which is addicted to holding up favorite doctrines as intuitive truths, and deems intuition to be the voice of Nature and of God, speaking with an authority higher than that of our reason. In particular, I have long felt that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes, are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement.

p. 273 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/the-practical-reformer.md)

Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [character](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character.md), [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md)

> I well knew that to propose something which would be called extreme, was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experiment.

p. 294 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/i-well-knew.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md)

> It is the character of the British people, or at least of the higher and middle classes who pass muster for the British people, that to induce them to approve of any change, it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance; my proposal was condemned, but any scheme for Irish Land reform, short of mine, came to be thought moderate by comparison.

p. 294 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/it-is-the.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md)