Quotes about Morality

The aim of a ship's captain is a successful voyage; a doctor's, health; a general's, victory. So the aim of our ideal statesman is the citizens' happy life--that is, a life secure in wealth, rich in resources, abundant in renown, and honorable in its moral character. That is the task which I wish him to accomplish--the greatest and best that any man can have.

Honesty is the best policy

There is no people so brutish or barbarous that they do not know that they must believe in a god, even if they do not know precisely what god they should worship.

As for you, my young friends, I urge you to strive for virtue, for without it friendship cannot exist. And friendship, aside from virtue, is the greatest thing we can find in life.

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

a distinction has gradually sprung up between what is expedient and what is right. But the implication that something can be right without being expedient, or expedient without being right, is the most pernicious error that could possibly be introduced into human life.

they follow nature as the most perfect guide to a good life. Now

The extreme of right is the extreme of wrong.

That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before.

You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.

All Creatures know that some must die That all the rest may take and eat; Sooner or later, all transform Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat. But Man alone seeks Vengefulness, And writes his abstract Laws on stone; For this false Justice he has made, He tortures limb and crushes bone. Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? Oh, if Revenge did move the stars Instead of Love, they would not shine.

How shrunk, how dwindled, in our times Creation's mighty seed - For Man has broke the Fellowship With murder, lust, and greed.