John Stuart Mill on paternalistic government

The worth of the State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interest of their mental expansion and elevation to a little more of administrative skill, or of that semblance of it which practice gives in the details of business; a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes - will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.

~ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, p. 187

John Stuart Mill on public schooling

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government - whether this be a monarch, priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation - in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.

~ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, p. 177

John Stuart Mill on the suppression of truth

... The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.  History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution.  If not suppressed forever, it may be thrown back for centuries.

~ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty