Quotes About Ethics

By the way, a question is sometimes raised, whether the moral choice or the actions have most to do with Virtue, since it consists in both: it is plain that the perfection of virtuous action requires both: but for the actions many things are required, and the greater and more numerous they are the more.)

good character is the indispensable condition and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing.

the Good of Man comes to be "a working of the Soul in the way of Excellence," or, if Excellence admits of degrees, in the way of the best and most perfect Excellence.

Not in depraved things, but in those well oriented according to nature, are we to consider what is natural.

The fact is that the greatest crimes are caused by excess and not by necessity. Men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold; and hence great is the honour bestowed, not on him who kills a thief, but on him who kills a tyrant.

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

The life of active virtue is essentially pleasant.

Again, it is for the sake of the soul that goods external and goods of the body are eligible at all, and all wise men ought to choose them for the sake of the soul, and not the soul for the sake of them.

The actions from which [virtue] was produced are also those in which it is exercised.

Again, Practical Wisdom and Excellence of the Moral character are very closely united; since the Principles of Practical Wisdom are in accordance with the Moral Virtues and these are right when they accord with Practical Wisdom.

Not every action or emotion however admits of the observance of a due mean

One can with but moderate possessions do what one ought.

rhetoric was to be surveyed from the standpoint of philosophy.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.

Nor is he liberal who gives with pain; for he would prefer the wealth to the noble act, and this is not characteristic of a liberal man. But no more will the liberal man take from wrong sources; for such taking is not characteristic of the man who sets no store by wealth.

Any polis which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise, political association sinks into a mere alliance.

Piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.

But in all cases we must guard most carefully against what is pleasant, and pleasure itself, because we are not impartial judges of it.

which we call men [Greek: euyvomoves], or say they have

Happiness requires both complete goodness and a complete lifetime.

None of the moral virtues is engendered in us by nature, for no natural property can be altered by habit.

The virtues therefore are engendered in us neither by nature nor yet in violation of nature; nature gives us the capacity to receive the,. and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit.

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.

Moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.