Quotes About Ethics

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

Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless.

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.

the first principle of all action is leisure.

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.

Man's work as Man is accomplished by virtue of Practical Wisdom and Moral Virtue, the latter giving the right aim and direction, the former the right means to its attainment;

Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

For 'activity in conformity with virtue' involves virtue.

Pleasure causes us to do base actions and pain causes us to abstain from doing noble actions.

Hence while in respect of its substance and the definition that states what it really is in essence virtue is the observance of the mean, in point of excellence and rightness it is an extreme.

There is no such thing as observing a mean in excess or deficiency, nor as exceeding or falling short in observance of a mean.

There is one end we all have – not in virtue of being rational, but simply in virtue of being human being – and that is happiness.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

men are guilty of the greatest crimes from ambition, and not from necessity

The Ethics of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his Politics is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the philosophy of human affairs; but more frequently Political or Social Science.

Life in accordance with intellect is best and pleasantest, since this, more than anything else, constitutes humanity.

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