Great Throughts Treasury

"None are so completely deaf as those who will not hear."

"Like flakes of snow that fall imperceptibly upon the earth, the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one another. As snowflakes gather, so our habits are formed. No single flake that is added to the pile produces a sensible change. No single action creates, however it may exhibit a man's character. But as the tempest hurls the avalanche down the mountain and overwhelms the inhabitant and his habitation, so passion, acting on the elements of mischief which pernicious habits have brought together, may overthrow the edifice of truth and virtue."

"Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them 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."

"On everything in which virtue is exercised, if something is not added to happiness, something is taken away form anxiety."

"He who thinks and thinks for himself will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn."

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign asters, 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 law. Systems which attempt to question it deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light."

"The rarest of all human qualities is consistency."

"We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness about us at little expense. Some of them will fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others, and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring. Once blest are all the virtues; twice blest, sometimes."

"I recognize, as the all-comprehensive, and only right and proper end of Government, the greatest happiness of the members of the community in question: the greatest happiness - of all of them, without exception , in so far as possible.: the greatest happiness of the greatest number of them..."

"On every in which virtue is exercised, if something is not added to happiness, something is taken away, form anxiety."

"In all human minds, in howsoever widely different proportions, self-regard, and sympathy for others or say extra-regard have place. But, in self-regard even sympathy has its root: and if, in the general tenour of human conduct, self-regard were not prevalent over sympathy - even over sympathy for all others put together, no such species as the human could have existed."

"Property is nothing but a basis of expectation; the expectation of deriving certain advantages from a thing which we said to possess, in consequence of the relation in which we stand towards it. There is no image, no painting, no visible trait, which can express the relation that constitutes property. It is not material, it is metaphysical; it is a mere conception of the mind."

"Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, Pain and Pleasure - 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."

"Property and law are born together, and i.e. together. Before laws were made there was no property; take away laws, and property ceases."

"Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards against improbity. It keeps the judge himself, while trying, under trial. Under the auspices of publicity, the cause in the court of law, and the appeal to the court of public opinion, are going on at the same time... It is through publicity alone that justice becomes the mother of security."

"The general object which all laws have, or ought to have, in common, is to augment the total happiness of the community; and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far as may be, every thing that tends to subtract from the happiness: in other words, to exclude mischief."

"The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society, by punishing and rewarding."

"Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity to pain, the only good; pain is in itself an evil; and, indeed, without exception, the only evil; or else the words good and evil have no meaning."

"Thus it is - that, by the comparative blindness of man in each preceding period, the like blindness in each succeeding period is secured: without the trouble or need of reflection, men, by opulence rendered indolent, and by indolence and self-indulgence doomed to ignorance, follow their leaders - as sheep follow sheep, and geese geese."

"The word “independence” is united to the accessory ideas of dignity and virtue. The word “dependence” is united to the ideas of inferiority and corruption."

"Every law is contrary to liberty."

"As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends. "

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

"It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual. "

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

"Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government. "

"No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion. "

"Every law is an infraction of liberty. "

"Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet."

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

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

"Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart. "

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

"That which has no existence cannot be destroyed — that which cannot be destroyed cannot require anything to preserve it from destruction. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense — nonsense upon stilts."

"Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure - 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."