Jeremy Bentham Quotes

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

The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

It is the greatest good to the greatest number which is the measure of right and wrong.

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.

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.

I do not believe in the doctrine of the greatest good of the greatest number. The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all.

Upon the principles of reason, the good of many is preferable to the good of a few or of one; a lasting good is to be preferred before a temporary, the public before the private.

To believe in 'the greater good' is to operate, necessarily, in a certain ethical suspension.

The balance of private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals; but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on nothing else.

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.

Mankind have, not only in their individual character, but in their collective capacity as nations, recognized and avowed in their opinions and actions, a system of laws calculated to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

Utilitarianism is a philosophy from the olden days exploring the idea that whatever is best for the majority is the fairest.

Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness.

Voting has not been tough for me, for the most part, because there's guideposts about what will bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people.

All moral laws are merely statements that certain kinds of actions will have good effects.

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct.

Even at school I studied ethics instead of religion.

But on a utilitarian level, I realize that to try to accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number of people, sometimes we have to become salesmen for what we believe, and part of being a salesman is being effective.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

The purpose of government is to obtain the greatest quantity of human happiness.

Compliments of your Senator, Lyndon Baines Johnson—the greatest good for the greatest number.