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By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness.

— Jeremy Bentham

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More quotes by Jeremy Bentham

The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)

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

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.

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)

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.

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jeremy Bentham (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.