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 it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn.
Jeremy BenthamRead
I don't care whether animals are capable of thinking; all I care about is that they are capable of suffering!
Interpretation
Jeremy Bentham emphasizes the importance of recognizing animal suffering over their cognitive abilities.
This quote by Jeremy Bentham challenges us to focus on the capacity for suffering in animals rather than their ability to think. It highlights a moral imperative to consider how we treat animals based on their ability to feel pain and suffering, advocating for their welfare and humane treatment, regardless of their cognitive capabilities.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about animal rights.
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 it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn.
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.
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.
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.
It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.
Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.
They call him Aslan in That Place," said Eustace. "What a curious name!" "Not half so curious as himself," said Eustace solemnly.
If this be to have sense, if to be awake Be but to see this bright, great sleep of things, For the rarer potion mine own dreams I'll take And for truth commune with imaginings
Oh Senor" said the niece. "Your grace should send them to be burned (books), just like all the rest, because it's very likely that my dear uncle, having been cured of the chivalric disease, will read these and want to become a shepherd and wander through the woods and meadows singing and playing and, what would be even worse, become a poet, and that, they say, is an incurable and contagious disease.
People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.
So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you. You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.
The human voice is the organ of the soul.
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