Mason Cooley Quotes

...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.

Virtue is nothing but an act of loving that which is to be beloved, and that act is prudence, from whence not to be removed by constraint is fortitude; not to be allured by enticements is temperance; not to be diverted by pride is justice.

There must be in prudence also some master virtue.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.

After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us?

A man who knows all goods and all truths, as many as can be known, but does not shun evils, knows nothing.

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.

If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy.

That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

Self-denial is not a virtue; it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

Is not virtue a negation of becoming?

Morality is the Science of harmonious relations between intelligent beings.

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.

The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.

There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.

Void of freedom, what would virtue be?

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions.

The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.

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

It is much more intelligent, more practical, to be good rather than evil.

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