59+ Jeremy Bentham Quotes On Utilitarianism, Law And Animals

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, jurist and social reformer of the 18th century. He is considered to be the founder of modern utilitarianism, which is the ethical theory that states that the right action is the one that maximizes utility or happiness. Bentham was a strong advocate of individual and economic freedoms, and his ideas had a great influence on the development of liberalism and democracy. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Jeremy Bentham on utilitarianism, law, animals.

Top 10 Jeremy Bentham Quotes

1. Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove.
2. The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.
3. I don't care whether animals are capable of thinking; all I care about is that they are capable of suffering!
4. Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.
5. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
6. What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
7. ...the rarest of all human qualities is consistency.
8. Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
9. Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.
10. Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards against improbity.

Jeremy Bentham Short Quotes

• The age we live in is a busy age; in which knowledge is rapidly advancing towards perfection.
• Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.
• There is no pestilence in a state like a zeal for religion, independent of morality.
• All poetry is misrepresentation.
• If Christianity needed an Anti-Christ, they needed look no farther than Paul.
• Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.
• To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure?
• The question is not can animals speak but can they suffer.
• Reputation is the road to power
• Lawyers sometimes tell the truth. They'll do anything to win a case.

Jeremy Bentham Quotes About Law

Want keeps pace with dignity. Destitute of the lawful means of supporting his rank, his dignity presents a motive for malversation, and his power furnishes the means. — Jeremy Bentham

Every law is an infraction of liberty. — Jeremy Bentham

The law of England has established trial by judge and jury in the conviction that it is the mode best calculated to ascertain the truth. — Jeremy Bentham

Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes. — Jeremy Bentham

It is with government as with medicine, its only business is the choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty. — Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham Quotes About Wrong

He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn. — Jeremy Bentham

[I]n principle and in practice, in a right track and in a wrong one, the rarest of all human qualities is consistency. — Jeremy Bentham

The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong. — Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham Quotes About Evil

Without publicity, no good is permanent; under the auspices of publicity, no evil can continue. — Jeremy Bentham

All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil. — Jeremy Bentham

As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends. — Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham Quotes About Reason

A civilized society must count animals as worthy of moral consideration and ethical treatment. The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? — Jeremy Bentham

The addability of the happiness of different subjects is a postulum without which all political reasonings are at a stand — Jeremy Bentham

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?" — Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham Famous Quotes And Sayings

Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure... they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. — Jeremy Bentham

Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you, --will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others, --or to diminish something of their pains. — Jeremy Bentham

Unkind language is sure to produce the fruits of unkindness--that is, suffering in the bosom of others. — Jeremy Bentham

All government is a trust. Every branch of government is a trust, and immemorially acknowledged to be so. — Jeremy Bentham

The word "independence" is united to the accessory ideas of dignity and virtue. The word "dependence" is united to the ideas of inferiority and corruption. — Jeremy Bentham

Lawsuits generally originate with the obstinate and the ignorant, but they do not end with them; and that lawyer was right who left all his money to the support of an asylum for fools and lunatics, saying that from such he got it, and to such he would bequeath it. — Jeremy Bentham

The request of industry to government is as modest as that of Diogenes to Alexander: Get out of my light. — Jeremy Bentham

Among the several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovernment, there is none more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion than the word Order. — Jeremy Bentham

No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion. — Jeremy Bentham

The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day's time they will have turned it into a Hell. — Jeremy Bentham

O Logic: born gatekeeper to the Temple of Science, victim of capricious destiny: doomed hitherto to be the drudge of pedants: come to the aid of thy master, Legislation — Jeremy Bentham

Bodies are real entities. Surfaces and lines are but fictitious entities. A surface without depth, a line without thickness, was never seen by any man; no; nor can any conception be seriously formed of its existence. — Jeremy Bentham

In the mind of all, fiction, in the logical sense, has been the coin of necessity;—in that of poets of amusement—in that of the priest and the lawyer of mischievous immorality in the shape of mischievous ambition,—and too often both priest and lawyer have framed or made in part this instrument. — Jeremy Bentham

Those physical difficulties which you cannot account for, be very slow to arraign; for he that would be wiser than Nature would be wiser than God. — Jeremy Bentham

It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual — Jeremy Bentham

An absolute and unlimited right over any object of property would be the right to commit nearly every crime.If Ihad sucha right over thestick Iamaboutto cut, I might employ it as a mace to knock down the passengers, or I might convert it into a sceptre as an emblem of royalty, or into an idol to offend the national religion. — Jeremy Bentham

The turn of a sentence has decided the fate of many a friendship, and, for aught that we know, the fate of many a kingdom. — Jeremy Bentham

We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness about us at little expense. Some of them will fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others, and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring. — Jeremy Bentham

The offence is what is improperly called the death of an infant, who has ceased to be, before knowing what existence is, a result of a nature not to give the slightest inquietude to the most timid imagination; and which can cause no regrets but to the very person who, through a sentiment of shame and pity, has refused to prolong a life begun under the auspices of misery. — Jeremy Bentham

The schoolmaster is abroad! And I trust to him armed with his primer against the soldier in full military array. — Jeremy Bentham

Priestly was the first (unless it was Becarria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth--that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. — Jeremy Bentham

The spirit of dogmatic theology poisons anything it touches. — Jeremy Bentham

Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it. — Jeremy Bentham

Is it possible for a man to move the earth? Yes; but he must first find out another earth to stand upon. — Jeremy Bentham

How is property given? By restraining liberty; that is, by taking it away so far as necessary for the purpose. How is your house made yours? By debarring every one else from the liberty of entering it without your leave. — Jeremy Bentham

Life Lessons by Jeremy Bentham

1. Jeremy Bentham taught us to always strive for the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. He believed that we should always act in a way that maximizes the overall happiness and well-being of society.
2. He also taught us to always be open to new ideas and to be willing to challenge existing beliefs and institutions in order to create a better society.
3. Lastly, Bentham taught us to always strive for justice and to treat everyone with respect and dignity, regardless of their background or beliefs.