Plato Quotes

Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.

The true object of moral and political disquisition is pleasure or happiness.

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

Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.

[U]sefulness is happiness, and... all other things are but incidental.

To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure?

I seek the utmost pleasure and the least pain.

We become moral when we are unhappy.

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

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.

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.

The end of pain we take as happiness.

The happiest is he who suffers least; the most miserable is he who enjoys least.

What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about 'right' and 'wrong,' or 'good' and 'evil,' and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?

There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad- the harm in terms of happiness and suffering- that our thoughts and our actions do to ourselves and others.

Good has two meanings: it means that which is good absolutely and that which is good for somebody.

There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.

[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists . . . an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

Where there is a mind, there are feelings such as pain, pleasure, and joy. No sentient being wants pain: all wants happiness instead.

It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer

Even if we can agree that some things are natural and some are not, what follows from this? The answer is: nothing. There is no factual reason to suppose that what is natural is good (or at least better) and what is unnatural is bad (or at least worse).