“A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.”
More from Thomas Paine on Ethics
“Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.”
“Calumny is a vice of curious constitution trying to kill it keeps it alive leave it to itself and it will die a natural death.”
“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.”
Others on Ethics
Ayn Rand
9 quotes“Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of which you dont”
Saint Augustine
8 quotes“Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicke...”
David Hume
7 quotes“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”
Dante
6 quotes“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality.”
Marcus Aurelius
4 quotes“The pride which is proud of want of pride is the most intolerable of all.”
Einstein
4 quotes“Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.”
Pope Benedict XVI
4 quotes“Purity of heart is what enables us to see.”
Confucius
3 quotes“Tsze-kung wished to dispense with the sacrifice of a sheep for the New Moon ceremony. The Master said, "You love the she...”
Immanuel Kant
3 quotes“...I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become universal law.”
Adam Smith
3 quotes“In the common degree of the moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence.”
Neal Shusterman
3 quotes“But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell.”
Alexander Pope
3 quotes“Order is heaven's first law.”