Alfred Jules Ayer Quotes

If you don't believe in God, then where is your moral barometer?

We [americans] have earned the moral authority, at least compared to anybody else in the world.

Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

Every government, left or right, always engages in moral crusades. What else are they supposed to do? Especially when they make war; any war has to be a moral crusade.

Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.

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.

Virtue is despotic; life, reputation, every earthly good, must be surrendered at her voice. The law may seem hard, but it is the guardian of what it commands; and is the only sure defence of happiness.

We may suppose that everyone has in himself the whole form of a moral conception.

Virtues are dangerous as vices insofar as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and not as qualities one develops oneself.

Certain environments, certain modes of life, and certain rules of conduct are more conducive to inner and outer harmony than others. There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification is one of them.

"Rituals" don't make you righteous, it's uprightness: living up to moral principles and ethical principles, and submitting to universal law established by God.

Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness.

In the end it is how you fight, as much as why you fight, that makes your cause good or bad.

The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.

In fact, so much of life, as you know, is serendipitous. That's why you better be prepared at any time for anything, because it may happen to you.

As a society we can't live without moral considerations. We do have to protect the public good. And markets are not designed to do that, so we need a political process.

All moral obligation resolves itself into the obligation of conformity to the will of God.

If nature does not ratify law, then all the virtues may lose their sway.

It is always so much easier to be moral than it is to be spiritual.

Moral courage is the highest expression of humanity.

Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished; but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution.

Fact creates norms, and truth illumination.

The state accumulates moral power only through the spiritual activity of their citizens.

A too constant preoccupation with money may seem to indicate the lack of a proper sense of moral values, but [let] those who have always had money . . . be without it for a while, and they will soon discover how quickly it becomes their chief concern.

... moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false.