This work is concerned with two optimisation problems that we tackle from a qualitative perspective. The first one deals with quantitative inequalities for spectral optimisation problems for Schrödinger operators in general domains, the second one deals with the turnpike property for optimal bilinear control problems. In the first part of this article, we prove, under mild technical assumptions, quantitative inequalities for the optimisation of the first eigen-value of −∆−V with Dirichlet boundary conditions with respect to the potential V , under L ∞ and L 1 constraints. This is done using a new method of proof which relies on in a crucial way on a quantitative bathtub principle. We believe our approach susceptible of being generalised to other steady elliptic optimisation problems. In the second part of this paper, we use this inequality to tackle a turnpike problem. Namely, considering a bilinear control system of the form ut − ∆u = Vu, V = V(t, x) being the control, can we give qualitative information, under L ∞ and L 1 constraints on V, on the solutions of the optimisation problem sup´Ω u(T, x)dx? We prove that the quantitative inequality for eigenvalues implies an integral turnpike property: defining I * as the set of optimal potentials for the eigenvalue optimisation problem and V * T as a solution of the bilinear optimal control problem, the quantity´T 0 dist L 1 (V * T (t, ·) , I *) 2 is bounded uniformly in T .