Jeremy Bentham Men Quotations

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

Is it possible for a man to move the earth? Yes; but he must first find out another earth to stand upon.

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.

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

Among the several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovernment, there is none more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion than the word Order.

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

The request of industry to government is as modest as that of Diogenes to Alexander: Get out of my light.

Without publicity, no good is permanent; under the auspices of publicity, no evil can continue.

Judges of elegance and taste consider themselves as benefactors to the human race, whilst they are really only the interrupters of their pleasure ... There is no taste which deserves the epithet good, unless it be the taste for such employments which, to the pleasure actually produced by them, conjoin some contingent or future utility: there is no taste which deserves to be characterized as bad, unless it be a taste for some occupation which has mischievous tendency.

All government is a trust. Every branch of government is a trust, and immemorially acknowledged to be so.

It is with government as with medicine, its only business is the choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.

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