To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.

I have never changed my message. I preach the Bible, and I preach it with authority.

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.

That’s the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Chinese people need to be controlled; otherwise, they will do whatever they want.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

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

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.

All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

Morality is of the highest importance – but for us, not for God.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

So far as I am concerned, I could not be accused of having set eyes, or having wished to set eyes, upon Darius‘ wife: on the contrary, I have refused even to listen to those who spoke to me of her beauty.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

I am a just man.

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

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

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?

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

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

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

Morality is contraband in war.

Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

If you’re not going to be rewarded for your virtues, and instead you’re going to be punished for them, then what’s your motivation to continue?

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

Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly follow your lead.

What is permissible is not always honorable.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

We’re all sinners. Everybody you meet all over the world is a sinner.

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise – repeal all compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

The wisest have the most authority.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

Be the chief but never the lord.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.