- Lived:
- 1807–1858 · London, mostly; died at Avignon, France
- Tradition:
- Victorian radicalism — utilitarian feminism and liberalism, forged inside history's most famous philosophical partnership
- The Big Idea:
- No one — no husband, no law, no "public opinion" — has the right to decide another person's sphere in life; every human being is entitled to the largest and highest life they can attain, and that requires liberty, education, and economic independence for women as much as men.
- In their words:
- "The proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest which they are able to attain to. What this is, cannot be ascertained, without complete liberty of choice."
- If you remember one thing:
- The woman thanked in the dedication of On Liberty as "the inspirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings" was not a muse. She was a philosopher — and it has taken scholarship a century and a half to start believing the man who said so.