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.

He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana.

Integrity has no need of rules.

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

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.

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

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

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

The time is always right to do what is right.

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems – from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics.

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.

The word ‚good‘ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie… a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

The man of life upright has a guiltless heart, free from all dishonest deeds or thought of vanity.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

Ought we not to ask the media to agree among themselves a voluntary code of conduct, under which they would not say or show anything which could assist the terrorists‘ morale or their cause while the hijack lasted.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

To be safe at the expense of the liberty of other people is a difficult equation.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

You cannot make a sinner into a saint by killing him. He who does not live as a saint here will never live as a saint hereafter.

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

Justice is truth in action.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

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

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.

Evil is whatever distracts.

Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without.

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

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