Bill Maher Quotes

There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.

I would like to believe there is a God, but I think it is better to say I'm not sure there is a God and live your life with kindness and respect for people than to say I know there is a God and then do bad things.

For Aristotle, goodness is a kind of prospering in the precarious affair of being human.

I want people to come away from my book with questions. Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers.

The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.

About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

The only virtue I want to claim is truth and nonviolence.

I'm not a believer in predetermined fates, being rewarded for one's efforts. I'm not a believer in karma. The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them.

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.

I don't think it matters if there is a god or not. I've met people who believe in God that are good and that are bad. And I've met people who don't believe in God that are good and that are bad. So, just be good. I'm good. Not cos I think I'll go to heaven but because when I do something bad, I feel bad. And when I do something good, I feel good.

We must now examine whether just people also live better and are happier than unjust ones. I think it's clear already that this is so, but we must look into it further, since the argument concerns no ordinary topic, but the way we ought to live.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroyeth much good.

Philosophy is fundamentally about how you come to terms with living your life and trying to do it in a wise manner, and, for me, that means decently and compassionately and courageously and so forth.

It is no easy task to be good.

Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

The final arbitrator in philosophy is not how we think but what we do.

If you want to be good, all you've got to do is be good.

Birth is nothing where virtue is not

HOBBES: Virtue needs some cheaper thrills.

She thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.

Thrasyllus the Cynic begged a drachm of Antigonus. "That," said he, "is too little for a king to give." "Why, then," said the other, "give me a talent." "And that," said he, "is too much for a Cynic (or, for a dog) to receive."

One of the possible reasons why we might be good is that we're frightened, frightened of God. We want the reward in Heaven, we don't want to go to Hell. That would be an ignoble, ignominious reason for being good, and I think that if anybody was good to you just because they hoped for a heavenly reward, you wouldn't respect them, you'd probably give them a wide berth.

The compass of compassion asks not what is good for me? but what is good? Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not how much can we take? but How much ought we leave? and how much might we give? Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral.