Quotes About Ethics

God is not offended except by our acting contrary to our own good

Three things are required for a war to be just. Indeed, the first requirement is that the ruler at whose command the war is to be waged have the lawful authority to do so. . . . Second, there needs to be a just cause to wage war, namely, that the enemy deserve to have war waged against it because of some wrong it has inflicted. . . . Third, those waging war need to have a right intention, namely, an intention to promote good and avoid evil.

Hence it is predicated chiefly of the virtuous; then of the pleasant; and lastly of the useful.

The rich do not act improperly if they before others take possession of property that was in the beginning common and share the property with others. But the rich sin if they indiscriminately prevent others from using the property.

To sin is to fall short of a perfect action; hence to be able to sin is to be able to fall short in action, which is repugnant to omnipotence.

We call laws just from three perspectives: (1) from their end, namely, when they are ordained for the common good; (2) from their authority, namely, when the laws enacted do not surpass the power of the lawmakers; (3) from their form, namely, when they impose proportionately equal burdens on citizens for the common good.

Agere sequitur esse.

yet so that envy is not to be taken for a passion, but for a will resisting the good of another.

The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.

The measure of a man's real character is what he will do if he knew he would never be found out.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.

with that very large part of mankind who have religion enough to make them uneasy when they do wrong, and not religion enough to keep them from doing wrong, he followed a very different system.

The giving way to a less sin makes way for the committing of a greater.

There is no little sin, because no little God to sin against.

The laws of war at that early day did not forbid a brave man to slay a sleeping foe

To be immoral, you must first subscribe to some conventional morality.... You cannot do wrong until you have first done right.

The great variety of moral qualities attributed to God by Scripture revolves particularly around two—holiness and love. These may be said in summary form to constitute the moral character of God

There reigns in the broken human heart a feeling of discord, a lack of congruence between what is and what ought to be (Augustine, Conf. 5).

The deadliest sin were the consciousness of no sin

The ghostly consciousness of wrong.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle.

Skepticism means, not intellectual doubt alone, but moral doubt.

Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.