“Axiom 8. That the importance of any action is measured by the degree of pleasure or pain that it causes or prevents.”

— Lewis Gompertz

Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824)

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 "Axiom 8. That the importance of any action is measured by the degree of pleasure or pain that it causes or prevents." by Lewis Gompertz?

Lewis Gompertz 9

Early animal rights activist 1783–1861

Related quotes

“By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter III, Theory of Utility, p. 61.

“The spirit is the cause of all our thoughts and body-action, and everything, but it is untouched by good or evil, pleasure or pain, heat or cold, and all the dualism of nature, although it lends its light to everything.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.”

Alan Brennert (1954) American writer

Source: Moloka'i

“One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

William Stanley Jevons Letter to his brother (1 June 1860), published in Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons (1886), edited by Harriet A. Jevons, his wife, p. 151 - 152.

“In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Book I, ch. 6.
Discourses

“Rule 2. Any summary of a distribution of numbers in terms of symmetric functions should not give an objective degree of belief in any one of the inferences or predictions to be made therefrom that would cause human action significantly different from what this action would be if the original distributions had been taken as evidence.”

Walter A. Shewhart (1891–1967) American statistician

[Shewhart, Walter A., Deming, William E., Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control, The Graduate School, The Department of Agriculture, 1939, 88]
Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product,1931

“The life of a mendicant during pilgrimages helped me to develop in a great measure forbearance, equal vision and a balanced mind in pleasure and pain.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

As quoted by Swami Sadananda Saraswati in his Introduction to Autobiography of Swami Sivananda (2000 web edition) http://www.dlshq.org/download/autobio.htm
Context: The life of a mendicant during pilgrimages helped me to develop in a great measure forbearance, equal vision and a balanced mind in pleasure and pain. I met many Mahatmas and learnt wonderful lessons. On some days I had to go without food and walk mile after mile. With a smile I faced all hardships.

“If you were Queen of pleasure
And I were King of pain
We'd hunt down Love together,
Pluck out his flying-feather,
And teach his feet a measure,
And find his mouth a rein;
If you were Queen of pleasure
And I were King of pain.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

“We regard an action of Contract as an action to prevent or compensate for a breach of a promise; an action of Tort as an action to to punish or compensate for a wrong, such as assault or defamation, which has not any necessary connection with a promise.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter X, Contract And Tort, p. 132

“Pleasure has desire in it. Desire is pain. There is no satisfaction. So pleasure is pain.”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Source: The Yellow Book, 1974, p.65

“Axiom 8. That the importance of any action is measured by the degree of pleasure or pain that it causes or prevents.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Lewis Gompertz 9

Related quotes

Related topics