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.

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.

We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule.

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

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

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

Life is about conduct and how we conduct ourselves. But two wrongs never make a right.

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls… saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?

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.

And whether you’re an honest man, or whether you’re a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.

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.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

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

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

Every sin is the result of a collaboration.

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

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

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.

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Don’t create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

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.

Good jokes are gems. A good idea is hard to come by. I couldn’t give them to someone else, even for money. It just wouldn’t seem right.

I’ve never been a manipulator, even in my bachelor days. I never wanted to do things to people that could catch up with me later on.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

Justice means minding one’s own business and not meddling with other men’s concerns.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office.

Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

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

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

You would have a huge statelessness problem if you don’t consider a child born abroad a U.S. citizen.

Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden.

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.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

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?

Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it’s perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

Justice is truth in action.

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

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

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

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.