Ian Hacking Quotes

Virtue must shape itself in deed.

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.

Out of right thinking comes right practice. It is not true that it does not matter what a man believes. It is not true to say, as many say, that a man's beliefs do not matter, it is only his conduct which is of importance; no lasting right conduct grows out of wrong belief. If you think falsely, you will act mistakenly; if you think basely, your conduct will suit your thinking.

The important is not what you believe but how you behave.

Action is the only reality; not only reality, but morality as well.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.

Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue but of the life.

The real nature of an ethic is that it does not become an ethic unless and until it goes into action.

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their professions.

Action is character.

What you are will show in what you do.

As for morality, well that's all tied up with the question of consciousness.

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

Talk does not cook rice.

Genuine religion is not about speculating about God or the soul or about what happened in the past or will happen in the future; it cares only about one thing—finding out exactly what should or should not be done in this lifetime.

One of the most disconcerting phenomena of these times is the disparity between the enormous amount of idealist propaganda that goes on from pulpit, platform and press, and the inconsiderable effect that it seems to produce in the actual conduct of men and of nations.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

Life is about conduct and how we conduct ourselves. But two wrongs never make a right.

What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do

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

But thought is one thing, the deed is another, and the image of the deed still another: the wheel of causality does not roll between them.

The whole glory of virtue resides in activity.