Quote

1859London, England

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. 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.

Read the passage→Chapter III: Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being

Similar Thoughts

Chanakya

The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.

Ralph Waldo Emerson·1841

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

William James·1890

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compos sui if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.

See all

More from John Stuart Mill

1859·London, England

The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used.

1859·London, England

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.

Locus

London, England

Tempus