Jeremy Bentham Quotes
Jeremy Bentham was an 18th and 19th-century English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer, the founder of modern utilitarian ethics. His 1789 work An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation set out the principle of utility as the foundation of morality and legislation, holding that the right action is the one that produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The quotes below are attributed to Jeremy Bentham, organized by topic.
Browse Jeremy Bentham by topic
Jeremy Bentham on Freedom
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.”
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“He who reads, judges. He who judges weighs. He who weighs may, and on a fit subject must, decide.”
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“Ah! when will the yoke of Custom —Custom, the blind tyrant, of which all other tyrants make their slave—ah! when will that misery-perpetuating yoke be shaken off?—when, when will Reason be seated on her throne?”
Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the Form of a Catechism, with Reasons for Each Article: With an Introduction, Showing the Necessity of Radical, and the Inadequacy of Moderate, Reform (1817), quoted in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Part X (1
Jeremy Bentham on God
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“Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria ) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth — that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”
Extracts from Bentham's Commonplace Book", in Collected Works , x, p. 142; He credits Priestley in his Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768) or Beccaria with inspiring his use of the phrase, often paraphrased as " The greatest good for the greatest number ", but the statement "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" actually originates with Francis Hutcheson , in his Inquiry c
Jeremy Bentham on Happiness
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.”
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”
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“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 .”
Advice to a young girl (22 June 1830) -
“To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure?”
Théorie des peines et des récompenses (1811); translation by Richard Smith, The Rationale of Reward , J. & H. L. Hunt, London, 1825, Bk. 3, Ch. 1
Jeremy Bentham on Justice
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“[I]n principle and in practice, in a right track and in a wrong one, the rarest of all human qualities is consistency.”
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation(1789; 1823) | Ch. 1: Of the Principle of Utility
Jeremy Bentham on Knowledge
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“Advice to a young girl (22 June 1830)”
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 cr -
“Théorie des peines et des récompenses (1811); translation by Richard Smith, The Rationale of Reward , J. & H. L. Hunt, London, 1825, Bk. 3, Ch. 1”
To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure? -
“It is part of a work to which if ever it should be completed I intend to give some such title as Principles of Legal Policy; the object of it is to trace out a new model for the Laws: of my own country you may imagine, in the first place: but keeping those of other countries all along in view. To ascertain what the Laws ought to be, in form and tenor as well as in matter: and that elsewhere as wel”
Letter to Voltaire ( c . November 1776), quoted in Timothy L. S. Sprigge (ed.), The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham (2017), p. 367 -
“MSS 29, 32, University College Collection”
It is the principle of antipathy which leads us to speak of offences as deserving punishment. It is the corresponding principle of sympathy which leads us to speak of certain actions as meriting reward. This word merit can only lead to passion and error. It is effects good or bad which we ought alone to consider. -
“The Rationale of Reward (1811)”
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 on Life
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.”
Jeremy Bentham on Nature
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“The question is not, can they reason? nor, can they talk? but, can they suffer?”
Jeremy Bentham on Politics
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“Natural rights is simple nonsense; natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense, nonsense upon stilts.”
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“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.”
The Rationale of Reward (1811) -
“Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.”
On Publicity from The Works of Jeremy Bentham volume 2, part 2 (1839)
Jeremy Bentham on Virtue
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“It is the principle of antipathy which leads us to speak of offences as deserving punishment. It is the corresponding principle of sympathy which leads us to speak of certain actions as meriting reward. This word merit can only lead to passion and error. It is effects good or bad which we ought alone to consider.”
MSS 29, 32, University College Collection
Things actually not said by Jeremy Bentham
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Jeremy Bentham but are in fact from someone else. Did Jeremy Bentham say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Jeremy Bentham say this? No.
“Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.”
Attributed to Bentham in The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (1949) by Evan Esar, p. 29; no earlier sources for this have been located. (Disputed.)
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Did Jeremy Bentham say this? No.
“All poetry is misrepresentation”
An Aphorism attributed to him according to John Stuart Mill (see Mill's essay On Bentham and Coleridge in Utilitarianism edt. by Mary Warnock p. 123). (Disputed.)