Thomas a Kempis Quotes

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

We can assume that most people, most of the time, are moral creatures. But imagine that this morality is like a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral. When that happens, morality is disengaged. If the car happens to be on an incline, car and driver move precipitously downhill. It is then the nature of the circumstances that determines outcomes, not the driver's skills or intentions.

Sensibility appears to me to be neither good nor evil in itself, but in its application. Under the influence of Christian principle, it makes saints and martyrs; ill-directed, or uncontrolled, it is a snare, and the source of every temptation; besides, as people cannot get it if it is not given them, to descant on it seems to me as idle as to recommend people to have black eyes or fair complexions.

It was time to pull my moral socks up and behave myself.

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

It's better to die doing good than to live doing evil.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat; Of habits devil, is angel yet in this.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.

How we become moral and understand good and bad, and how we overcome our impulse towards violence, is all really important to me, as a person.

In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything.

In vain will you fly from one vice if in your wilfulness you embrace another.

Morality can muddle mystical understanding and virtue is only necessary in so far as it favours success. All wisdom must be encompassed in order to achieve enlightenment.

The feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom.

The act of acting morally is behaving as if everything we do matters.

Do you wish the world were better? Let me tell you what to do: Set a watch upon your actions, Keep them always straight and true.

We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.

There’s more time spent on teaching kids about recycling than on character development in the American schools.

The future success of our Nation depends on our children's ability to understand the difference between right and wrong and to have the strength of character to make the right choices. To help them reach their full potential and live with integrity and pride, we must teach our children to be kind, responsible, honest, and self-disciplined. These important values are first learned in the family, but all of our citizens have an obligation to support parents in the character education of our children

It's hard to explain," said Brutha. "But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave... you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.

Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art.

The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.

People who expect to feel guilty tend to be more sympathetic, to put themselves into other people's shoes, to think about the consequences of their behaviour before acting, and to treasure their morals. As a result they are less prone to lie, cheat or behave immorally when they conduct a business deal or spot an opportunity to make money, studies suggest. They are also likely to make better employees because people who think less about the future results of their actions are more likely to be late, to steal or to be rude to clients.

I finished by saying that it struck me that all the ethical systems I was discussing were after the fact. That is, that people act as they are disposed to, but they like to feel afterwards that they were right and so they invent systems that approve of their dispositions.