On Liberty

On Liberty is John Stuart Mill's elegant defense of personal freedom in a world that loves to tell people what's "good for them." His core idea is the harm principle: society may limit an individual's actions only to prevent harm to others, not to enforce morality, tradition, or majority opinion.

Mill argues that free speech-even offensive or unpopular speech-is vital, because silencing ideas robs us of truth, weakens our understanding of what we believe, and turns living beliefs into dead dogma. He extends this logic to lifestyle choices: diversity of thought, character, and ways of living is not a social problem but a social engine. Progress comes from experiments in living.

In short, Mill's book is a manifesto for individuality under law: protect people from harming one another, but otherwise let them think, speak, and live boldly. Freedom, for Mill, isn't chaos-it's the condition that allows truth, creativity, and human growth to exist at all.