Lysander Spooner Quotes

I believe that if your primary motivation in life is to be moral, you don't become an artist.

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.

Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man.

We need to have a purpose in this life. I'm pleading with you, I'm begging with you to do the right thing. And do it not for the sake of how it will impact your own lives, but only for the sake of doing the right thing.

Seeking the good is not primarily about rules and commandments.

Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

All moral laws are merely statements that certain kinds of actions will have good effects.

You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.

In ethics, there is a humility; moralists are usually righteous.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness.

Reasonable ideas which find their sanction in the conscience of the righteous do not die; they are consequently realities and active forces, but they are so only to the extent that those who profess them know how to turn them to account.

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

The struggle for morality never stays won. It's always in process.

If you know something is morally reprehensible, then it is your moral obligation to stop it as soon as possible.

A book must have moral purpose to be any good. Why, I don't know.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

Freedom is not the liberty do anything whatsoever. It is the freedom to do good