“Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.”
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Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.
Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.