# Quote — John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

> Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

- Author: [John Stuart Mill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill.md)
- Book: [On Liberty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#On_Liberty_(1859)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [human nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty/human-nature-is-not

## More from this book

> No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead...Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much and even more indispensable to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature which they are capable of.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty/no-one-can.md)

Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md)

> I 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty/i-regard-utility.md)

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

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty/he-who-knows.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md)