Priestly was the first (unless it was Becarria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth--that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

The addability of the happiness of different subjects is a postulum without which all political reasonings are at a stand

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

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 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? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.

What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

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.

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