Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

To terrify children with the image of hell… to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?

The rise of capitalist practice and morality brought with it a radical revision of how the commons are treated, and also of how they are conceived.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

For a war to be just three conditions are necessary – public authority, just cause, right motive.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that somewhere, in some way, you are justified.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

I think big business is a terrible thing for the spirit of the country, as our spirit is the best thing about us.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.

I can hardly eat meat because it has to look like something what it was not when it was alive.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.

The computer brings out the worst in some people.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.

Doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about.

A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‚escape of energy,‘ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life it is bad to damage and destroy life.

Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.

True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

I do think there should be some regulations on AI.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

The Scoutmaster who is a hero to his boys holds a powerful lever to their development but at the same time brings a great responsibility on himself. They are quick enough to see the smallest characteristic about him, whether it be a virtue or a vice.

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.

Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is harmony in the house; when there is harmony in the house, there is order in the nation; when there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.

Justice is truth in action.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society.

Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.