The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Jeremy Bentham3 quotes
All inequality that has no special utility to justify it is injustice. — Jeremy Bentham · 1795It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong. — Jeremy Bentham · 1776The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. — Jeremy Bentham · 1832Mark Twain3 quotes
Prosperity is the best protector of principle. — Mark Twain · 1897Principles have no real force except when one is well fed. — Mark Twain · 1893Each race determines for itself what indecencies are. Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. — Mark Twain · 1896Daniel Defoe2 quotes
Vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination. — Daniel Defoe · 1722Actions receive their tincture from the times,
And as they change, are virtues made or crimes. — Daniel Defoe · 1703Derek Parfit2 quotes
On all plausible theories, everyone’s well-being consists at least in part in being happy, and avoiding suffering. — Derek Parfit · 2011The part of our moral theory... That covers how we affect future generations... Is the most important part of our moral theory, since the next few centuries will be the most important in human history. — Derek Parfit · 1984Edward Gibbon2 quotes
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. — Edward Gibbon · 1781Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776Publilius Syrus2 quotes
Necessity knows no law except to prevail. — Publilius Syrus · 43 BCPardon one offense, and you encourage the commission of many. — Publilius Syrus · 43 BCAdam Smith1 quote
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. — Adam Smith · 1759Aldo Leopold1 quote
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. — Aldo Leopold · 1949Aldous Huxley1 quote
The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced. — Aldous Huxley · 1937Alfred North Whitehead1 quote
What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1941Charlotte Bronte1 quote
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns. — Charlotte Bronte · 1848Cicero1 quote
There exists a law, inborn of our hearts by natural intuition, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. — Cicero · 52 BCClarence Darrow1 quote
I do not believe there is any sort of distinction between the real moral conditions of the people in and out of jail. One is just as good as the other.... I do not believe that people are in jail because they deserve to be. They are in jail simply because they cannot avoid it on account of circumstances which are entirely beyond their control and for which they are in no way responsible. — Clarence Darrow · 1902Edmund Burke1 quote
There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, — the Law of Nature and of Nations. — Edmund Burke · 1794Edward Bellamy1 quote
I say that there is no such thing as moral responsibility for past acts, no such thing as real justice in punishing them, for the reason that human beings are not stationary existences, but changing, growing, incessantly progressive organisms, which in no two moments are the same. Therefore justice, whose only possible mode of proceeding is to punish in present time for what is done in past time, must always punish a person more or less similar to, but never identical with, the one who committed the offence, and therein must be no justice. — Edward Bellamy · 1880Ernest Hemingway1 quote
I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. — Ernest Hemingway · 1932Francis Hutcheson1 quote
That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. — Francis Hutcheson · 1725Friedrich Nietzsche1 quote
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1882Friedrich Schiller1 quote
What's not forbidden to do make bold. — Friedrich Schiller · 1798G.K. Chesterton1 quote
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it. — G.K. Chesterton · 1917Gustave Flaubert1 quote
What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it. — Gustave Flaubert · 1880Henrik Ibsen1 quote
I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future. — Henrik Ibsen · 1882Hermann Busenbaum1 quote
The end justifies the means. — Hermann Busenbaum · 1650Honore de Balzac1 quote
Man is neither good nor bad; he is born with instincts and abilities. — Honore de Balzac · 1842Immanuel Kant1 quote
There is... Only a single categorical imperative and it is this: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. — Immanuel Kant · 1785Justinian I1 quote
Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to render to every one his due. — Justinian I · 533Juvenal1 quote
No one ever suddenly became depraved. — Juvenal · 127Learned Hand1 quote
Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution. — Learned Hand · 1945Libosus of Vaga1 quote
The Lord says in the gospel; "I am the Truth." He does not say "I am custom." Therefore, when the truth is made manifest, custom must give way to truth. — Libosus of Vaga · 400Martin Luther King, Jr.1 quote
There are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1963