“The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?”

— Jeremy Bentham , book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Source: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789; 1823), Ch. 17 : Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence
Source: The Principles of Morals and Legislation
Context: The day has been, I grieve to say in many places it is not yet past, in which the greater part of the species, under the denomination of slaves, have been treated by the law exactly upon the same footing as, in England for example, the inferior races of animals are still. 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. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?" by Jeremy Bentham?

Jeremy Bentham 30

British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer 1748–1832

Related quotes

“There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

“The reason fat men are good natured is they can neither fight nor run.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

“How much can you depend on their loyalty? You can depend upon their loyalty as much as the Germans depended upon it in 1916.
And we're going to suffer the same fate as Germany suffered, and for the same reason.”

Benjamin H. Freedman (1890–1984) American businessman

His opinion on the loyalty of Zionists to the United States
Willard Hotel speech (1961)

“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch”

Rudyard Kipling book The Second Jungle Book

Stanza 4.
The Second Jungle Book (1895), If— (1896)
Context: If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

“I like talking when people ask me sensible questions. Ask me senseless questions also, but in a context, and I can have fun, I can make you laugh at my answers.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

“We can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

“Since truth and constancy are vain,
Since neither love, nor sense of pain,
Nor force of reason, can persuade,
Then let example be obey'd.”

George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735) 1st Baron Lansdowne

To Myra; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), "Example", p. 242-43.

“The constant questioning of our values and achievements is a challenge without which neither science nor society can remain healthy.”

Aage Niels Bohr (1922–2009) Danish physicist

Nobel Prize Banquet Speech http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1975/bohr-speech.html, December 10, 1975.

“Suffering is not increased by numbers. One body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Source: The Quiet American

“You can talk to the man. He is reasonable, and sees your point of view, if you point it out properly.”

Wilhelm Canaris (1887–1945) German admiral, head of military intelligence service

About speaking to Hitler. Quoted in "Hitler's Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II" - Page 234 - by David Kahn - True Crime - 2000

“The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Jeremy Bentham 30

Related quotes

Related topics