Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Jeremy Bentham (British Philosopher, Economist)

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was an English philosopher, writer on jurisprudence, and social reformer. He was the original and the chief expounder of the ethical doctrine known as utilitarianism. His work led to many political, legal, and penal reforms.

Born in London, Bentham went to Queen’s College-Oxford, at the age of 12 and was called to the Bar at the age of 15. More than the practice of law, he was more engrossed in the theory of the law.

Bentham is best known as a pioneer of utilitarianism in his works A Fragment on Government (1776) and Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789.) Bentham argued that the purpose of all actions and legislation should be “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

Bentham maintained that laws should be socially functional and not just reflect the status quo; he proposed a ‘hedonic calculus’ to estimate the effects of various types of actions. He traveled extensively in Europe and Russia, was made an honorary citizen of the French Republic in 1792, and wrote on penal and social reform, economics, and politics.

Bentham planned a special prison (the Panopticon) and a special school (the Chrestomathia,) and helped start The Westminster Review in 1823. He also founded University College London, where his attired skeleton is on display.

Bentham exerted enormous influence as the leader of a like-minded group of ‘philosophical radicals’—it included such philosophers as James Mill and his son John Stuart Mill.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by 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

The principle of utility judges any action to be right by the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interests are in question… if that party be the community the happiness of the community, if a particular individual, the happiness of that individual.
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 to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.
Jeremy Bentham

Every law is an infraction of liberty.
Jeremy Bentham
Topics: Lawyers, Law

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
Topics: Thought, Thoughts, Thinking

The effect of wealth in the production of happiness goes on diminishing, as the quantity by which the wealth of one man exceeds that of another goes on increasing: in other words, the quantity of happiness produced by a particle of wealth (each particle being of the same magnitude) will be less and less at every particle; the second will produce less than the first, the third than the second, and so on.
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
Topics: Poverty

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
Jeremy Bentham
Topics: Pain, Pleasure

The word independence is united to the ideas of dignity and virtue; the word dependence, to the ideas of inferiority and corruption.
Jeremy Bentham
Topics: Independence

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

The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.
Jeremy Bentham
Topics: One liners, Law, Lawyers

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

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
Topics: Kindness

Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.
Jeremy Bentham
Topics: Stars

In former days superstitious rites were used to exorcise evil spirits; but in our times the same object is attained, and beyond comparison more effectually by the common newspaper. Before this talisman, ghosts, vampires, witches, and all their kindred tribes are driven from the land, never to return again. The touch of “holy water,” is not so intolerable to them as the smell of printing ink.
Jeremy Bentham

An evil comes rarely alone. A lot of evil cannot well fall upon an individual without spreading itself about him, as about a common centre. In the course of its progress we see it take different shapes: we see evil of one kind issue from evil of another kind; evil proceed from good and good from evil. All these changes, it is important to know and to distinguish; in this, in fact, consists the essence of legislation.
Jeremy Bentham

Tyranny and anarchy are never far asunder.
Jeremy Bentham
Topics: Tyranny

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

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

Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
Jeremy Bentham
Topics: Ignorance, Law, Lawyers

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
Topics: Censorship

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.
Jeremy Bentham
Topics: Goodness, Happiness

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