“"This is a very old argument. The greatest happiness of the greatest number. If you think about it, you'll find it always works out that a few suffer for the good of the rest."
"In stories," Gair agreed hopelessly. "brave men die defending the rest. But this isn't like that!"
"Call it the modern version," Mr Claybury suggested kindly.”

— Diana Wynne Jones, book Power of Three

Source: Power of Three (1976), p. 201.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote ""This is a very old argument. The greatest happiness of the greatest number. If you think about it, you'll find it alwa…" by Diana Wynne Jones?

Diana Wynne Jones photo

Diana Wynne Jones137

English children's fantasy writer 1934–2011

Related quotes

“Remind yourself that all men assert that wisdom is the greatest good, but that there are few who strenuously seek out that greatest good.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

"Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus" (1904)
Florilegium

“No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Detached Pages, entry for 1913
Journals 1889-1949

“That Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers”

Francis Hutcheson (philosopher) (1694–1746) Irish philosopher

An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725) Treatise II, Section 3
Context: That Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery.

“I once thought the greatest sin of war was violence. It isn't. The greatest sin is it requires good men to become practical.”

Pierce Brown book Dark Age

Source: Dark Age (2019), Ch. 1: Till the Vale; Darrow

“wherever you find the greatest good, you will find the greatest evil, because evil loves paradise as much as good.”

Wallace Stegner (1909–1993) American historian, writer, and environmentalist

Source: All the Little Live Things

“Not even the apparently enlightened principle of the ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ can excuse indifference to individual suffering. There is no test for progress other than its impact on the individual.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

In Place of Fear (William Heinemann Ltd, 1952), pp. 167-8
1950s

“That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: Weirdos From Another Planet: Calvin & Hobbes Series: Book Six: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

“He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.”

John Ruskin book Modern Painters

Volume I, part I, chapter II, section 9 (1843).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)

“The greatest way to defend democracy is to make it work.”

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) Scottish-born Canadian politician

Address, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, Saskatoon, March 13, 1951.

“It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go—let it die away—go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow—and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them. It is much better fun to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book III, Chapter 6, "Christian Marriage"
Mere Christianity (1952)

Related topics