In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable … - John Stuart Mill

"...over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign".

The greater part of the world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result. Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life; they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most powerful nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or dependants of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when theirs had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress.

If there are any persons who contest a received opinion,
or who will do so if law or opinion will let them, let us thank
them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice
that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought,
if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of
our convictions, to do with much greater labor for ourselves.