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

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it’s beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth… Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them.

Allah’s the Arabic term for God. Stand up for God, fight for God, work for God and do the right thing, and go the right way, things will end up in your corner.

Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.

The foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

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

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

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

The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.

You cannot mix sports with politics.

To be is to do.

Who sows virtue reaps honor.

Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?

I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle-class morality.

A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Assuming if there’s such a thing as reality, if you have a false relationship with it, how can you do anything but fail?

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

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

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.

In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you’d get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it’s hard work, almost harder once you’re successful because you’ve got to maintain it.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

It’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Younger scientists are extremely sensitive to the moral implications of all they do.

What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.

Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime. Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.

Rastafari not a culture, it’s a reality.

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent.

I happen to believe there is evil in the world.

Seeing is not always believing.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

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

I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty.

What is permissible is not always honorable.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

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.

Perception often lags behind reality, and I can say from experience that the vast majority of public officials in Louisiana are much better than our reputation holds us to be.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.

The ‚I think‘ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‚I breathe‘ which actually does accompany them.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

The quality of moral behavior varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.