Quotes About Ethics

Among some people arrogance supplies the place of grandeur, inhumanity of decision, and roguery of intelligence.

During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.

A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse ; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.

No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which does not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.

We never deceive people to benefit them, for knavery is a compound of wickedness and falsehood.

A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd.

For most men the love of justice is only the fear of suffering injustice.

Perfect valor is to behave, without witnesses, as one would act were all the world watching.

If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter.

However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.

The love of justice is, in most men, nothing more than the fear of suffering injustice.

There are certain defects which, well-mounted, glitter like virtue itself.

Propriety is the least of all laws, but the most obeyed.

A fool has not stuff enough to make a good man.

Our virtues are usually just vices in disguise.

Hypocrisy is the homage of vice to virtue.

What seems like generosity is often but a disguised ambition, which overlooks little interests, in order to gratify great ones.

We try to make a virtue of vices we are loath to correct.

We should often be ashamed of our very best actions if the world only saw the motives which caused them.

Soyez un ivrogne de magnificences et de sublimités morales et titubez sur le genre humain

C'est une atrocité de pharisiens d'exiger des esclaves le désintéressement spirituel qui n'est possible qu'aux affranchis.

Life does not give itself to one who tries to keep all its advantages at once. I have often thought morality may perhaps consist solely in the courage of making a choice.

Virtue, like a dowerless beauty, has more admirers than followers.

The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.