Quotes About Morality

Or isn't virtue in tension with wealth, as though each were lying in the scale of a balance, always inclining in opposite directions?

We should not then think so much of what the majority will say about us, but what he will say who understands justice and injustice, the one, that is, and the truth itself.

Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker?

Every man ought in every way to guard himself against doing wrong . . . And if he . . . does wrong, he ought of his own accord to go where he will be immediately punished; he will run to the judge, as he would to the physician, in order that the disease of injustice may not be rendered chronic and become the incurable cancer of the soul.

Where there is great power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing.

Where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation.

when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy.

This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;—it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice.

The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse—in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled. Yes

I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living

On the other hand, I can't not defend her, since I can't help feeling it is wrong to stand idly by when I hear justice coming under attack, and not come to her defence for as long as I have breath in my body and a tongue in my head. So the best thing is to make what defence I can.

Now, can musicians use music to make people unmusical?'* 'Impossible.' 'Can skilled horsemen use their skill to make people bad horsemen?' 'No.' 'So can moral people use morality to make people immoral? Or in general can good people use their goodness to make people bad?'*

Virtue is the desire of things honorable and the power of attaining them.

It is by justice, that we can truly authenticate a man's value or nullity, the absence of justice, is the absence of what makes him man. Plato

Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods. I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated.

You will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and true man.

the greatest of penalties is being ruled by a worse man if one is not willing to rule oneself. It is because they fear this, in my view, that decent men rule, when they do rule; and at that time they proceed to enter on rule, not as though they were going to something good, or as though they were going to be well off in it; but they enter on it as a necessity and because they have no one better than or like themselves to whom to turn it over.

But why dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons worth considering, will think of these things truly as they occurred.

For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unaltera- ble; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.

Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but think only of the truth of my words, and give heed to that: let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly. (Socrates)

ought the just to injure any one at all?

And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be.

question—What is justice, stripped of appearances?

There's no difficulty in choosing vice in abundance: the road is smooth and it's hardly any distance to where it lives. But the gods have put sweat in the way of goodness, and a long, rough, steep road.