Jeremy Bentham quotes - page 2

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer, regarded as a founding figure of modern utilitarianism. His work advocated for the greatest happiness principle, influencing law, politics, and ethics. He remains a lasting inspiration for reforms in human rights and social justice. Here are 56 of his quotes:

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. (Jeremy Bentham)

Every law is an infraction of liberty.

Jeremy Bentham

Rights are, then, the fruits of the law, and of the law alone. There are no rights without law-no rights contrary to the law-no rights anterior to the law. Before the existence of laws there may be reasons for wishing that there were laws-and doubtless such reasons cannot be wanting, and those of the strongest kind;-but a reason for wishing that we possessed a right, does not constitute a right. To confound the existence of a reason for wishing that we possessed a right, with the existence of the right itself, is to confound the existence of a want with the means of relieving it. It is the same as if one should say, everybody is subject to hunger, therefore everybody has something to eat.

Jeremy Bentham

[P]leasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good: pain is in itself an evil; and, indeed, without exception, the only evil; or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And this is alike true of every sort of pain, and of every sort of pleasure.

Jeremy Bentham

The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is what? The sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.

Jeremy Bentham

Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure- Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure. Such pleasures seek if private be thy end: If it be public, wide let them extend. Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view: If pains must come, let them extend to few.

Jeremy Bentham

All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil.

Jeremy Bentham

[I am] at heart more of a United-States-man than an Englishman.

Jeremy Bentham

There is no pestilence in a state like a zeal for religion, independent of morality.

Jeremy Bentham

Lawyers sometimes tell the truth. They'll do anything to win a case.

Jeremy Bentham

Reputation is the road to power.

Jeremy Bentham

That which has no existence cannot be destroyed - that which cannot be destroyed cannot require anything to preserve it from destruction. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense - nonsense upon stilts.

Jeremy Bentham

Judges of elegance and taste consider themselves as benefactors to the human race, whilst they are really only the interrupters of their pleasure.

Jeremy Bentham

He ought to assure himself of two things; 1st, that in every case, the incidents which he tries to prevent are really evils; and 2ndly, that if evils, they are greater than those which he employs to prevent them.

Jeremy Bentham

Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty: And I repeat that government has but a choice of evils.

Jeremy Bentham

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

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

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

Right... is the child of law.

Jeremy Bentham

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

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

Jeremy Bentham

Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.

Jeremy Bentham

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

Judges of elegance and taste consider themselves as benefactors to the human race, whilst they are really only the interrupters of their pleasure ... There is no taste which deserves the epithet good, unless it be the taste for such employments which, to the pleasure actually produced by them, conjoin some contingent or future utility: there is no taste which deserves to be characterized as bad, unless it be a taste for some occupation which has mischievous tendency.

Jeremy Bentham