“In the common degree of the moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence.”

More from Adam Smith on Ethics

Others on Ethics

Ayn Rand

9 quotes

“Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.”

Saint Augustine

8 quotes

“If we live good lives the times are also good. As we are such are the times.”

David Hume

7 quotes

“The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.”

Dante

6 quotes

“The weapons of divine justice are blunted by the confession and sorrow of the offender.”

Marcus Aurelius

4 quotes

“Will any man despise me? Let him see to it. But I will see to it that I may not be found doing or saying anything that d...”

Pope Benedict XVI

4 quotes

“Morality is not man's prison but rather the divine element in him.”

Thomas Paine

4 quotes

“Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right a...”

Einstein

4 quotes

“True human progress is based less on the inventive mind than on the conscience of such men as Brandeis.~ Albert Einstein”

Socrates

3 quotes

“...[T]he really important thing is not to live, but to live well... [a]nd to live well means the same thing as to live h...”

Neal Shusterman

3 quotes

“But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell.”

Ursula K. LeGuin

3 quotes

“You must not change one thing one pebble one grain of sand until you know what good and evil will follow on that act.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

3 quotes

“in order to do evil, must first believe that what they are doing is good, otherwise they can't do it.”