Archibald Alexander Quotes

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

Men are more accountable for their motives, than for anything else; and primarily, morality consists in the motives, that is in the affections.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

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.

Without integrity and conscience we lose our freedom.

For no phase of life, whether public or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns oneself alone or dealing with another, can be without its moral duty; on the discharge of such duties depends all that is morally right, and on their neglect all that is morally wrong in life.

All duties are matters of conscience, with this restriction that a superior obligation suspends the force of an inferior one.

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

The moral law commands us to make the highest possible good in a world the final object of all our conduct.

I do not want to suggest that you have to be religious to be moral.

Seeking the good is not primarily about rules and commandments.

Moral choices do not depend on personal preference and private decision but on right reason and, I would add, divine order.

All effective actions require the passport of morality.

You might want to think twice before you try to use a man's conscience against him. It may turn out he doesn't have one.

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

Duty is a better guide than stars or statutes.

Virtue - even attempted virtue - brings light; indulgence brings fog.

Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves.

While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

Let every man consider virtue as what devolves on himself. He may not yield the performance of it even to his teacher.

A man ought to do what he thinks is right

Life is moral responsibility.

Ye must leave righteous ways behind, not to speak of unrighteous ways.

He [man] knows that when he is not what he ought to be; when he does what he ought not to do; or omits what he ought to do, he is chargeable with sin