Louis Kronenberger Quotes

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

Morality, a muzzle for the will; logic, a climbing iron for the mind.

He who would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

I'm the kind of person who embarks on an endless leapfrog down the great moral issues. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal and rebut the refutation. Endlessly.

There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior.

I have a morality. I don't know if it's the best morality. And I do like thinking. If people perceive that as a moral intellectualism, that's fine. That's up to them to decide.

There are two methods of human activity - and according to which one of these two kinds of activity people mainly follow, are there two kinds of people: One use their reason to learn what is good and what is bad and they act according to this knowledge; the other act as they want to and then they use their reason to prove that that which they did was good and that which they didn't do was bad.

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.

My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.

To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

Morality's not practical. Morality's a gesture. A complicated gesture learnt from books.

To be moral involves taking a position towards that matrix, thinking critically about what is taken for granted.

The intellect has only one failing, which, to be sure, is a very considerable one. It has no conscience.

That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.

In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything.

Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

[R]eason is... given to us as a practical faculty, that is, as one that influences the will.

It is better to will the good than to know the truth.

Morality is the Science of harmonious relations between intelligent beings.

It is a prejudice to think that morality is more favourable to the development of reason than immorality.

Moral activity? There is scarcely such a thing possible! Everything is sketchy. The world does nothing but sketch.

I finished by saying that it struck me that all the ethical systems I was discussing were after the fact. That is, that people act as they are disposed to, but they like to feel afterwards that they were right and so they invent systems that approve of their dispositions.

Intention, good or bad, is not enough.