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...the rarest of all human qualities is consistency.Jeremy Bentham
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Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.Jeremy Bentham
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Bodies are real entities. Surfaces and lines are but fictitious entities. A surface without depth, a line without thickness, was never seen by any man; no; nor can any conception be seriously formed of its existence.Jeremy Bentham
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In the mind of all, fiction, in the logical sense, has been the coin of necessity;–in that of poets of amusement–in that of the priest and the lawyer of mischievous immorality in the shape of mischievous ambition, –and too often both priest and lawyer have framed or made in part this instrument.Jeremy Bentham
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Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you, --will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others, --or to diminish something of their pains.Jeremy Bentham
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.. . in no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of governments.Jeremy Bentham
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Without publicity, no good is permanent; under the auspices of publicity, no evil can continue.Jeremy Bentham
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No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.Jeremy Bentham
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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. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light. .Jeremy Bentham
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If a man happen to take it into his head to assassinate with his own hands, or with the sword of justice, those whom he calls heretics, that is, people who think, or perhaps only speak, differently upon a subject which neither party understands, he will be as much inclined to do this at one time as at another. Fanaticism never sleeps: it is never glutted: it is never stopped by philanthropy; for it makes a merit of trampling on philanthropy: it is never stopped by conscience; for it has pressed conscience into its service. Avarice, lust, and vengeance, have piety, benevolence, honour; fanaticism has nothing to oppose it.Jeremy Bentham
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All punishment is mischief. All punishment in itself is evil.Jeremy Bentham
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The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.Jeremy Bentham
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Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.Jeremy Bentham
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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.Jeremy Bentham
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The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.Jeremy Bentham
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It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.Jeremy Bentham
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The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.Jeremy Bentham
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The age we live in is a busy age in which knowledge is rapidly advancing towards perfection.Jeremy Bentham
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Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.Jeremy Bentham