Quotes About Morality

Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act...

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

It is their character indeed that makes people who they are. But it is by reason of their actions that they are happy or the reverse.

Evil brings men together.

Without virtue, man is most unholy and savage, and worst in regard to sex and eating.

The greatest crimes are not those committed for the sake of necessity but those committed for the sake of superfluity. One does not become a tyrant to avoid exposure to the cold.

Moral experience—the actual possession and exercise of good character—is necessary truly to understand moral principles and profitably to apply them.

How can a man know what is good or best for him, and yet chronically fail to act upon his knowledge?

Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good.

We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.

The man who does not enjoy doing noble actions is not a good man at all.

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

Those who are not angry at the things they should be angry at are thought to be fools, and so are those who are not angry in the right way, at the right time, or with the right persons.

Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good: for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the Chief Good is, that which all things aim at.

No more will there be any difference between 'the ideal good' and 'good' in so far as both are good.

Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

And so the good man ought to be Self-loving: because by doing what is noble he will have advantage himself and will do good to others: but the bad man ought not to be, because he will harm himself and his neighbours by following low and evil passions. In the case of the bad man, what he ought to do and what he does are at variance, but the good man does what he ought to do, because all Intellect chooses what is best for itself and the good man puts himself under the direction of Intellect.

Virtue is a greater good than honour; and one might perhaps accordingly suppose that virtue rather than honour is the end of the political life.

Wisdom or intelligence and prudence are intellectual, liberality and temperance are moral virtues.

habits of virtue and vice are caused by acts

good character is the indispensable condition and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing. The end of all action, individual or collective, is the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

Actions which produce [virtue] are those which increase it, and also, if differently performed, destroy it.

To feel these feelings at the right time, on the right occasion, towards the right people, for the right purpose and in the right manner, is to feel the best amount of them, which is the mean amount - and the best amount is of course the mark of virtue.