Peter Abelard Quotes

We call an intention good which is right in itself, but the action is good, not because it contains within it some good, but because it issues from a good intention.

It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.

To ask that which is unjust at the hands of the just, is an injustice in itself; to expect that which is just from the unjust, is simple folly.

Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.

There is no such thing as character other than the habitual action, as Mr. Aristotle told us two thousand years ago.

All good moral philosophy is ... but the handmaid to religion.

The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings.

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

To be more precise, it's ethics and liberation, and as a consequence there is an ethics of liberation.

There is no ethics in general. There are only-eventually-ethics of processes by which we treat the possibilities of a situation.

Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.

The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.

One of them is knowing the difference between Morality and Wisdom. Morality is temporary, Wisdom is permanent… Ho ho. Take that one to bed with you tonight.

You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action - that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one.

There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.

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

It is in everybody's interest to seek those [actions] that lead to happiness and avoid those which lead to suffering. And because our interests are inextricably linked, we are compelled to accept ethics as the indispensable interface between my desire to be happy and yours.

Our best performances are so stained with sin, that it is hard to know whether they are good works or bad works.

I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.

Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.

Good and evil are essential differences of the act of the will. For good and evil pertain essentially to the will; just as truth and falsehood pertain to the reason, the act of which is distinguished essentially by the difference of truth and falsehood (according as we say that an opinion is true or false.) Consequently, good and evil volition are acts differing in species.

Justice is inseparable from truth in human life.

It is not races but individuals that are noble and courageous or ignoble and craven or considerate or persistent or philosophical or reasonable. The race gets credit when the percentage of noble individuals is high.

The uppermost idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermost ideas with Hebraism is conduct and obedience.Nothing can do away with this ineffaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the body and its desires is, that they hinder right thinking; the Hebrew quarrel with them is, that they hinder right acting.