Christian Nestell Bovee Quotes

People are either good or they're not. Religion doesn't make anybody good, I don't think.

Every wicked man is in ignorance as to what he ought to do, and from what to abstain, and it is because of error such as this that men become unjust and, in a word, wicked.

The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.

There has never been a man mean and at the same time virtuous.

It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting

A good moral character is the first essential. It is highly important not only to be learned but to be virtuous.

I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right now, and we're making a lot of progress on understanding how we actually work, what our moral nature is.

Is not virtue a negation of becoming?

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality.

That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.

Morality is truth in full bloom.

We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law.

When goodness is lost, it is replaced by morality.

Man is not equally moral at all hours, this is well known. If his morality is judged to be the capability for great self-sacrificing resolutions and self-denial (which, when continuous and grown habitual, are called holiness)

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.

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.

Higher education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue.

Our virtues and vices couple with one another, and get children that resemble both their parents.

You cannot make men good by law.

Do people get moral when they don't get ahead?

We become moral when we are unhappy.