Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

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.

If one must do a wrong, it's best to do it pursuing power-otherwise, let's have virtue.

Do you know what morals are? Morals are an obedience to rules that people laid down to help you live among them.

Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think...of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the 'right' notes and the 'wrong' ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.

But the nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.

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.

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.

We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law.

I think in general the ends do not justify the means.

Ethical inquiry has always been motivated by the aim of improving human conduct. It doesn't follow from that that the goal is to produce a complete rule book that would be applicable to all cases.

Conventionality is not morality.

The whole history of man is continuous proof of the maxim that to divest one's methods of ethical concepts means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization.

There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition. There are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it.

I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right now, and we're making a lot of progress on understanding how we actually work, what our moral nature is.

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

I worry that when you start quoting Machiavelli to justify your actions, you have ceased to be one of the good guys. No, quoting Nietzsche does that. Machiavelli is just cool.

The end justifies the means only when the means used are such as actually bring about the desired and desirable end.

When, in the present world, men behave well, that is no doubt sometimes because they are creatures of habit as well as, sometimes, because they are reasonable.

the ends never justify the means because IT never ends.

Morality is the Science of harmonious relations between intelligent beings.

Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man.

That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. This isn’t a good idea. This isn’t right.” “There’s all kinds of right,” he murmured. “On the spectrum, we’re still in the safe zone.” ... “Definitely right. Usually right,” Patch continued. “Mostly right. Maybe right.

Morality is either a social contract or you have to pay cash.

Morality must be the heart of our existence, if it is to be what it wants to be for us. The highest form of philosophy is ethics. Thus all philosophy begins with "I am." The highest statement of cognition must be an expression of that fact which is the means and ground for all cognition, namely, the goal of the I.