Timeless Quotes on Ethics, Freedom, and Human Nature

Timeless Moral and Philosophical Quotes

Ethics and Moral Thought

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

— John Stuart Mill

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."

— Jeremy Bentham

"Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you."

— Confucius

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

— (The Golden Rule)

"Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness."

— Immanuel Kant

Pascal's Wager

"If God does not exist, one will lose nothing by believing in him, while if he does exist, one will lose everything by not believing."

— Blaise Pascal

"If God does not exist, everything is permissible."

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

"Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things."

— Epictetus

"Virtue is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency."

— Aristotle

"Fortune favors the brave."

— Proverb

"Virtue seems to be a kind of health: a fine condition and well-being of the soul."

— Plato

"Vice is never unpunished nor virtue unrewarded."

— Unknown

"Nobody would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other good things."

— Aristotle

Freedom, Power, and Society

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

— Winston Churchill

"He whom love touches not walks in darkness."

— Plato

"Each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other."

— Herbert Spencer

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

— John Stuart Mill

"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way."

— John Stuart Mill

Knowledge, Belief, and Human Nature

"Nothing is more useful to man than man."

— Baruch Spinoza

"A theory that explains everything explains nothing."

— Karl R. Popper

"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."

— David Hume

"It is always better to suffer evil than to do evil."

— Socrates

"Man is the measure of all things."

— Protagoras