David Hume Quotes

A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities, and the United States, in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened nations, would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.

Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty.

There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.

In any society that is governed by the rule of law, some form of morality is always imposed. It's inescapable.

We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior.

Civilization rests on the fact that most people do the right thing most of the time.

An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion.

In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.

As laws are necessary that good manners may be preserved, so good manners are necessary that laws may be maintained.

Civilization depends on morality.

There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.

What is right is not always the same as what is legal

We don't claim to have perfect morals, but at least we have a huge area of things that, while legal, are beneath us. We won't do them. Currently, there's a culture in Americathat says that anything that won't send you to prison is OK.

The first requisite of civilization, therefore, is that of justice — that is, the assurance that a law once made will not be broken in favour of an individual. This implies nothing as to the ethical value of such a law.

A state of temperance, sobriety and justice without devotion is a cold, lifeless, insipid condition of virtue, and is rather to be styled philosophy than religion.

Real morality is possible when the sanctions for morality are also tangible and real. Therefore, atheism shifts the basis of morality from faith in god to obligations of social living. Moral conduct is not a passport to heaven; it is social necessity.

He cannot be vertuous that is not rigorous.

All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores.

It is impossible to maintain freedom and order and justice without religious and moral sanctions.

whatever is morally wrong, is equally wrong in man and in woman and no virtue is to be cultivated in one sex, that is not equally required by the other.

Morality is the thing upon which your friends smile, and immorality is the thing upon which they frown

Moral result can only be produced by moral restraints.

Obedience, as it regards the social relations, the rules of society, and the laws of nature and nature's God, should commence at the cradle and end only at the tomb.

Manners are the root, laws only the trunk and branches. Manners are the archetypes of laws. Manners are laws in their infancy; laws are manners fully grown,--or, manners are children, which, when they grow up, become laws.