Quotes About Morality

As to the right of men to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie, no such right exists. Men are never in a state of total independence of each other. It is not the condition of our nature: nor is it conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action without its having some effect upon others; or, of course, without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites.

Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding. And to prevent the least hope of amendment, a king is ever surrounded by a crowd of infamous flatterers, who find their account in keeping him from the least light of reason, till all ideas of rectitude and justice are utterly erased from his mind.

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.

All That Is Needed For Evil To Succeeded, Is For Good People To Do Nothing

By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.

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where there is no sound reason, there can be no real virtue.

ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be opened through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.

It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will . . . than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of a political benevolence.

Enquanto a vergonha mantiver sua vigia, a virtude não será inteiramente extinta do coração, nem a moderação será totalmente exilada das mentes dos tiranos.

Criminal means once tolerated are soon preferred.

My principles enable me to form my judgment upon men and actions in history, just as they do in common life, and are not formed out of events and characters, either present or past. History is a preceptor of prudence, not of principles. The principles of true politics are those of morality enlarged; and I neither now do, nor ever will, admit of any other.

Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.

The only thing for evil to triumph in the world is for good men not to act.

É melhor valorizar a virtude e humanidade, deixando muito ao livre-arbítrio, mesmo com alguma perda para o objeto, do que tentar tornar os homens meras máquinas e instrumentos de uma benevolência política.

Evil prevails if good people say nothing. -

Nothing universal can be rationally affirmed on any moral or any political subject. Pure metaphysical abstraction does not belong to these matters. The lines of morality are not like the ideal lines of mathematics. They are broad and deep as well as long. They admit of exceptions; they demand modifications. These exceptions and modifications are not made by the process of logic, but by the rules of prudence.

It only needs a good man to do nothing for evil to triumph.

all virtues are not equally becoming to all men and at all times.

The true lawgiver ought to have an heart full of sensibility. He ought to love and respect his kind, and to fear himself.

To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.

When they smile, I see blood trickling down their faces; I see their insidious purposes; I see that the object of all their cajoling is—blood! I now warn my countrymen to beware of these execrable philosophers, whose only object it is to destroy every thing that is good here, and to establish immorality and murder by precept and example—'Hic niger est hunc tu Romane caveto' ['Such a man is evil; beware of him, Roman'. Horace, Satires I. 4. 85.].

We are not made at once to pity the oppressor and the oppressed.