Joseph Butler Quotes

We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.

Virtue alone is the unerring sign of a noble soul.

The good man is he for whom, because he is virtuous, the things that are absolutely good are good; it is also plain that his use of these goods must be virtuous and in the absolute sense good.

What is called virtue in the common sense of the word has nothing to do with this or that man's prosperity, or even happiness.

Ethics without virtue is an illusion. What is the highest purpose of ethics? It is to make a person good, that is virtuous.

Virtue is the truest nobility.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue.

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.

Justice is happiness according to virtue.

Honesty is a selfish virtue. Yes I am honest enough.

We have next to consider the formal definition of virtue.

Worthy of honor is he who does no injustice, and more than twofold honor, if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any.

Virtue does not consist in the absence of the passions, but in the control of them.

Riches and power are but gifts of blind fate, whereas goodness is the result of one's own merits.

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

The happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

The existence of virtue depends entirely upon its use.

Moral excellence is the bright consummate flower of all progress.

Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

Virtuous people are simply those who have not been tempted sufficiently, because they live in a vegetative state, or because their purposes are so concentrated in one direction that they have not had the leisure to glance around them.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.

The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.