67 things from this book went into her brain. Here are the first 6.
John Stuart Mill argued that a practical art needs a clear idea of the end being aimed at first, because the rules for acting take their shape from that end.
John Stuart Mill said a set of principles needs one fundamental principle or a clear order of precedence, so that when two principles clash you know which one wins.
John Stuart Mill observed that even people who reject a principle are still shaped by it, since concern for what adds to or takes from happiness quietly guides many of their judgments.
John Stuart Mill held that some ends cannot be proved directly, but reasons can still be weighed, so a thoughtful person can accept or reject a principle on good grounds.
John Stuart Mill believed many people rejected his idea of happiness only because they misunderstood it, so a principle should be explained clearly before anyone judges it.
John Stuart Mill suggested that the better of two pleasures is the one that people who have tried both prefer, even when it brings some discontent with it.
John Stuart Mill argued that being content is not the same as being happy, and that a person with richer abilities may feel less settled yet still have the fuller happiness.
John Stuart Mill noted that people often drift to lesser pleasures not by choice but because their higher capacities wither without use, so keeping them in practice matters.
John Stuart Mill argued that a noble character matters not only to the person who has it but because it makes others happier, so the good of the whole is the real test.
John Stuart Mill described happiness not as constant rapture but as a life with few pains, many varied pleasures, and the sense of not expecting more than life can give.
John Stuart Mill saw a satisfied life as mostly calm and excitement, and felt that caring for others keeps life interesting, even as its end draws near.
John Stuart Mill believed real care for others and an interest in the common good are within reach of most people, and that the main work is reducing the big sources of suffering.
John Stuart Mill asked whether self-sacrifice is good in itself, and concluded that it matters only when it serves others, so the purpose behind a sacrifice is what counts.
John Stuart Mill suggested that being able to do without happiness can free a person from anxiety about life's blows, so they can calmly enjoy what is still within reach.
John Stuart Mill saw the golden rule as the spirit of utilitarian ethics, and suggested that good laws and education should link each person's own happiness with the good of the whole.
John Stuart Mill separated the rule of right action from the motive behind it, noting that most of what we do comes from other motives, and that this is fine if the rule is kept.
John Stuart Mill held that most of our moral duty concerns the particular people our actions affect, and that the wider public good only needs weighing when our actions reach far.
John Stuart Mill argued that the best proof of a good character is good actions over time, and that a disposition which mostly produces bad conduct should not be called good.
John Stuart Mill admitted that some in his own school judged too narrowly by the rightness of actions and neglected sympathy, a warning for anyone who measures everything by a single test.
John Stuart Mill warned that a short-term gain can undermine a rule worth far more, such as truthfulness, since trust in each other's word is what holds society together.
John Stuart Mill pointed out that people do not need to calculate every consequence before acting, because humanity's long experience has already taught which actions help or harm others.
John Stuart Mill compared general moral rules to signposts on a journey: knowing your destination does not mean ignoring the roads that get you there.
John Stuart Mill noted that every moral system faces hard cases, and that self-deception creeps in wherever a creed allows exceptions, so honesty with yourself is needed under any philosophy.
John Stuart Mill argued that one ultimate standard lets you settle conflicts between duties, which is better than none, even if applying it is hard.
John Stuart Mill held that an act's rightness depends on what the agent intends to do, while motive shapes how we judge the person and their habits of character.
John Stuart Mill noted that every moral standard faces the question of why we should obey it, and that familiar customs feel binding in a way that a new principle has to earn.
John Stuart Mill hoped education could make a feeling of unity with our fellow creatures as natural to people as their horror of crime, so doing good feels like part of who they are.
John Stuart Mill described conscience as the felt pain that follows breaking a duty, which can harden into remorse afterwards and gives a moral rule its binding force.
John Stuart Mill observed that people feel moral pressure through their own inner feeling, and that conscience is easily silenced whatever one believes about where it comes from.
John Stuart Mill pointed out that intuitive moralists already treat concern for others' interests as a core duty, so the two schools agree more than they argue.
John Stuart Mill argued that moral feelings are learned rather than innate, yet still natural, and that upbringing can shape them for good or for harm.
John Stuart Mill located the strength of a shared morality in the human desire to be united with fellow creatures, since living in society requires regard for everyone's interests.
John Stuart Mill observed that working together makes a person's ends blend with others', so the good of others comes to feel like a natural concern.
John Stuart Mill said a person with social feeling cannot bring themselves to see others as rivals for happiness, and feels that harmony with others is a natural need.
John Stuart Mill argued that the only proof something is worth wanting is that people actually want it, in the same way that the only proof something is visible is that people see it.
John Stuart Mill held that a good person loves virtue for its own sake, and that this becomes part of their happiness rather than a rival to it.
John Stuart Mill observed that what we first pursue as a means, such as money or fame, can become desired for its own sake, which shows how habits and associations shape what we want.
John Stuart Mill held that a person who loves virtue for its own sake is a real blessing to others, and that other acquired desires are only good up to the point where they stop serving the common good.
John Stuart Mill noted that habit can turn a purpose we once chose into something we act on without fresh desire, so the habits we build deserve careful choosing.
John Stuart Mill argued that a feeble will to do right is awakened by linking right action with pleasure and wrong with discomfort, and that habit later carries it on without effort.
John Stuart Mill pointed out that a natural feeling, such as a sense of justice, does not prove itself right, and that our instincts need to be checked and enlightened by reason.
John Stuart Mill noted that law is not the final test of justice, since a law can be bad, and that a wrong against a moral right is real even where no law is broken.
John Stuart Mill observed that people generally think justice means getting what one deserves, and that generosity such as returning good for evil goes beyond what justice requires.
John Stuart Mill described impartiality as being moved only by the considerations that properly apply to the case in hand, and resisting pressure from other motives.
John Stuart Mill noticed that people's ideas of fair treatment shift with what they think is useful, so many claims about justice are really claims about what works.
John Stuart Mill traced the idea of justice back to law and custom, noting that the sense of injustice later attached to laws that ought to exist, not only to the laws in force.
John Stuart Mill suggested that to call an act wrong is to say the person ought to answer for it, whether through law, public opinion or their own conscience.
John Stuart Mill separated duties that give someone a claim, such as keeping faith, from acts of charity that we must practise but not towards any particular person, and placed justice in the first group.
John Stuart Mill noted that people differ from other animals in extending sympathy beyond their own young to all human and even all sentient beings, and in seeing their safety bound up with their community's.
John Stuart Mill held that a natural urge to resent harm becomes moral only when guided by concern for the common good, so we resent what society has a shared interest in stopping.
John Stuart Mill noted that a person whose resentment is truly moral asks whether an act is blameable before reacting, and so considers the good of others as well as their own.
John Stuart Mill explained that a right is something society ought to protect for us, so a person has a right to what they can fairly earn, but not to an income society has no duty to provide.
John Stuart Mill argued that security is the most vital of all interests, since every other good depends on being safe from whoever is stronger, which is why our sense of right and wrong feels so absolute.
John Stuart Mill pointed out that people who call justice a clear, self-evident standard still disagree sharply about what is just, so the claim alone does not settle hard questions.
John Stuart Mill observed that competing claims about justice can each look sound on their own, and that they only get settled when we look to the deeper principles beneath justice.
John Stuart Mill noted that clever devices such as the social contract often sidestep hard questions of justice rather than answer them, so it is better to face the conflict openly.
John Stuart Mill argued that when two fair principles of justice conflict, as with rewarding skill or sharing equally, social usefulness is what can finally decide between them.
John Stuart Mill concluded that when people's ideas of justice contradict each other, the only way out is to ask what serves the general happiness.
John Stuart Mill argued that the rules forbidding people to harm one another matter most, because they keep the peace and are what everyone needs others to observe.
John Stuart Mill noted that refusing to return a kindness when it is needed hurts a person by breaking a reasonable expectation, which is why fairness in repaying kindness belongs to justice.
