There are no means of finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying - and no means by which anyone else can discover for them what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone
Interpretation
True happiness can only be discovered through personal experience and effort.
John Stuart Mill emphasizes the importance of individual exploration in discovering what brings happiness. He argues that neither a single person nor a collective can dictate what will bring joy to another; it is through personal trials and attempts that one learns what actions lead to their own fulfillment and contentment.
In practice
During a motivational speech, the quote can be used to highlight the importance of trying new things for personal growth.
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.
To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.
There should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences. It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved.
Political Economy, in truth, has never pretended to give advice to mankind with no lights but its own; though people who knew nothing but political economy (and therefore knew it ill) have taken upon themselves to advise, and could only do so by such lights as they had.
Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.
No one has the right to criticize you for how your body looks, but they will. One thing I've learned from experiencing this exact kind of criticism is that no one else can label your body except for you. No one gets to have a place in your mind if they weren't invited there by you. So please do me this one favor: Don't let their ugly words into your beautiful mind.
Do more than be fair: be kind.
In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.
Be thankful for the thorns and thistles, which keep you from being in love with this world, and becoming an idolater.
The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.
My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. I chose the sloth because its demeanour - calm, quiet and introspective - did something to soothe my shattered self.
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