Historical voices

If I were to say that I am not affected by regret for Scipio, I must leave the philosophers to justify my conduct, but in point of fact I should be telling a lie.

For in fact I had no right to allow myself to be withdrawn from a duty which I had regularly performed, as long as I was well, by any personal misfortune; nor do I think that anything that can happen will cause a man of principle to…

But if, on the other hand, the assertion is made that pleasure admits of a show of expediency also, there can still be no possible union between it and moral rectitude.

Why, the supreme good, which ought to be simple, cannot be a compound and mixture of absolutely contradictory qualities.

But moral rectitude does not accept such a union; she abhors it, spurns it.

And therefore Calliphon and Dinomachus, in my judgment, deserve the greater condemnation; they imagined that they should settle the controversy by coupling pleasure with moral rectitude; as well yoke a man with a beast!

For neither goodness nor generosity nor courtesy can exist, any more than friendship can, if they are not sought of and for themselves, but are cultivated only for the sake of sensual pleasure or personal advantage.

Justice totters or rather, I should say, lies already prostrate; so also with all those virtues which are discernible in social life and the fellowship of human society.

For self-control is the foe of the passions, and the passions are the handmaids of pleasure.

What a sorry state of servitude for a virtue--to be pandering to sensual pleasure!

Thus apparent expediency is outweighed when placed in the balance against moral rectitude.

He was wrong; for deceit does not remove the guilt of perjury--it merely aggravates it. #The ancient Roman discipline.# His cunning that impudently tried to masquerade as prudence was, therefore, only folly.

But if they mean to adopt it as a principle, that a pledge given to the faithless is no pledge, let them look to it that it be not a mere loophole for perjury that they seek.

For what more competent witness do we ask for than one of the foremost citizens of Rome, who voluntarily faced torture for the sake of being true to his moral duty?

For the question no longer concerns the wrath of the gods (for there is no such thing) but the obligations of justice and good faith.

But in taking an oath it is our duty to consider not what one may have to fear in case of violation but wherein its obligation lies: an oath is an assurance backed by religious sanctity; and a solemn promise given, as before God as one's…

But because we cannot discover it anywhere except in good report, propriety, and moral rectitude, we look upon these three for that reason as the first and the highest objects of endeavour, while what we term expediency we account not so…

For we all seek to obtain what is to us expedient; we are irresistibly drawn toward it, and we cannot possibly be otherwise.

People overturn the fundamental principles established by nature, when they divorce expediency from moral rectitude.

Nay; can what is inexpedient for the state be expedient for any individual citizen?

Thus there are many things which in and of themselves seem morally right, but which under certain circumstances prove to be not morally right: to keep a promise, to abide by an agreement, to restore a trust may, with a change of…

I believe you should not; for you would be acting against the state, which ought to be the dearest thing in the world to you.

Promises are, therefore, sometimes not to be kept; and trusts are not always to be restored.

He ought to have broken his vow rather than commit so horrible a crime.