Bentham, Jeremy

"The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in the phraseology of politics."

"Education in its most comprehensive and proper sense, is the preparation for life."

"Pursue pleasure and avoid pain—this is the great principle."

"The legislator should have one simple object: the greatest happiness of the greatest number."

"As to religion, I hold it to be the impudence of finite creatures to make affirmations about infinite subjects."

"In a word, I am a radical."

"The function of art is to imitate nature."

"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; to which the rich have always had an effective answer."

"The man who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; and who associates with the ignorant is left alone."

"The question is not whether beings of other species are rational, but whether they can suffer."

"Sensibility is the capacity to be affected by pleasure and pain."

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

"Nature will never be understood until the phenomena of life and organization are explained mechanically."

"There is no gambling like politics."

"The more we love, the greater our capacity for suffering."

"The business of a legislator is to promote the happiness of the society."

"All laws create some mischief; the problem is whether they create more happiness than misery."

"Prejudice, it is not to be wondered at, has had a powerful hold on men."

"The art of government is to coordinate the conflicting wills of men."

"That the state is the guardian of the public interest seems to be a chimera."

"Knowledge is power, and power is the means to happiness."

"Religion is a poison more dangerous than any other, even when it is true."

"Government is only good when the wishes of the public are obeyed."

"The mind of man is such that knowledge once acquired can never be lost."

"Sincerity, the ornament of virtue, is the very core of true nobility."

"Nature, with all its glory, cannot compete with one hour of true affection."

"The utile is the good, and the good is the utile."

"Government is always unstable unless it depends upon the happiness of the governed."

"The art of life is to avoid pain and pursue pleasure in the right measure."

"To a certain point, the worse government is more instructive than the better."