Bentham, Jeremy

"Education should teach people to think rationally about their own happiness and others'."

"Nothing is good or bad except insofar as it produces happiness or misery."

"The primary duty of government is to identify and eliminate sources of public misery."

"A truly moral person acts always with an eye toward maximizing universal happiness."

"The happiness of all should be the ultimate goal of every moral and political system."

"To understand human behavior, one must understand the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain."

"The greatest impediment to justice is the resistance of those who profit from injustice."

"Happiness is achievable only through the exercise of reason and careful moral deliberation."

"A government that serves only the interests of the wealthy is a government that has failed."

"The pain of punishment should never exceed the pain of the crime committed."

"To increase human happiness, we must increase human knowledge and rational capacity."

"The greatest happiness principle is not a luxury; it is a necessity for social peace."

"Laws are justified only insofar as they serve to increase the happiness of the governed."

"Selfishness becomes virtue when directed toward the happiness of all, not just oneself."

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

"Nature has placed mankind under two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."

"It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong."

"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

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

"Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove."

"The utility of any moral rule is determined by its tendency to promote the greatest happiness."

"Every law is an infraction of liberty."

"Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the margin, poetry is when some of them fall short of it."

"The more strictly we are watched, the better we behave."

"Interest, not principle, governs the actions of mankind."

"The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and makes it the foundation of its system."

"No power of government ought to be employed in the violation of any natural right."

"Custom is the playground of the eccentric, law is the playground of the wise."

"The art of legislation is to reconcile conflicting interests for the good of all."

"Sensibility to pleasure and to pain is a pre-requisite for happiness."