Petrarch Quotes

Morality is truth in full bloom.

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

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

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

We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.

Conscience is better served by a myth.

A moral choice in its basic terms appears to be a choice that favors survival: a choice made in favor of life.

Right and wrong are not the product of census.

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.

Morality is the Science of harmonious relations between intelligent beings.

You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?" "It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize." "Must be a human thing." "Exactly.

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

Ethics is inescapable.

We talk so much about one's rights... so little about what is actually right.

You know, there's a right and wrong way to do everything.

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

Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest.

If you ask anyone, what is morality based on? These are the two factors that always come out: One is reciprocity, … a sense of fairness, and the other one is empathy and compassion.

I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.

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

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

It is not true that people of high principle are ill-suited for politics.

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

For a good cause, wrongdoing is virtuous.