Quotes about Ethics
good character is the indispensable condition and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing.
— Aristotle
Again, it is for the sake of the soul that goods external and goods of the body are eligible at all, and all wise men ought to choose them for the sake of the soul, and not the soul for the sake of them.
— Aristotle
rhetoric was to be surveyed from the standpoint of philosophy.
— Aristotle
Any polis which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise, political association sinks into a mere alliance.
— Aristotle
Moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.
— Aristotle
Nevertheless, Rhetoric is useful, because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible.
— Aristotle
We cannot be prudent without being good.
— Aristotle
The ideal man, takes joy in doing favours for others; but he feels ashamed to have others do favours for him. For it is a mark of superiority to confer a kindness; but it is a mark of inferiority to receive it.
— Aristotle
The law is reason unaffected by desire.
— Aristotle
To feel or act towards the right person to the right extent at the right time for the right reason in the right way - is not easy, and it is not everyone that can do it, hence to do these things well is a rare, laudable and fine achievement.
— Aristotle
The many, the most vulgar, would seem to conceive the good and happiness as pleasure, and hence they also like the life of gratification. Here they appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life for grazing animals.
— Aristotle
Again, it is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, to use Heraclitus' phrase', but both art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder;
— Aristotle