Ethics and Morality

Observe that open loves are held to be more honorable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honorable.

No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself

No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong. Only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.

No knowledge considers or prescribes for the advantage of the stronger, but for that of the weaker, which it rules

Many men are loved by their enemies, and hated by their friends, and are the friends of their enemies, and the enemies of their friends.

Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

Most men in power become villains

Lust is inseparably accompanied with the troubling of all order, with impudence, unseemliness, sloth, and dissoluteness.

Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.

Let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.

It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.

It is only just that anything that up on its own should feel it has nothing to repay for an upbringing which it owes no one.

It is impossible to improve the world if first the man does not improve.

It is by justice, that we can authenticate a man's value or nullity, the absence of justice, is the absence of what makes him man.

It behooves those who take the young to task to leave them room for excuse, lest they drive them to be hardened by too much rebuke.

Isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is?

In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these means, man can attain perfection.

They master certain pleasures because they are mastered by others, I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that they only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom .

If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake.

If a man says that it is right to give everyone his due, and therefore thinks within his own mind that injury is due from a just man to his enemies but kindness to his friends, he was not wise who said so, for he spoke not the truth, for in no case has it appeared to be just to injure any one.