Ethics and Morality

There is an imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it. This imperative is Categorical … This imperative may be called that of Morality.

I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.

Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will.

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more seriously reflection concentrates upon them: the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me.

Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

Honesty is praised and left to shiver.

All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons.

They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.

A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.

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

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess success.

Chastity—the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.

The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Auream quisquis mediocritatem Diligit.

Integer vitae scelerisque purus.