Historical voices

But that depends on our purpose in seeking prosperity; for we do not aim to be rich for ourselves alone but for our children, relatives, friends, and, above all, for our country.

No act of theirs can be expedient, when what they do is tainted with so many vices.

Pythius, therefore, and all others who do one thing while they pretend another are faithless, dishonest, and unprincipled scoundrels.

At all events he would be no candid or sincere or straightforward or upright or honest man, but rather one who is shifty, sly, artful, shrewd, underhand, cunning, one grown old in fraud and subtlety.

The fact is that merely holding one's peace about a thing does not constitute concealment, but concealment consists in trying for your own profit to keep others from finding out something that you know, when it is for their interest to…

It is even worse than refusing to set a man on his way: it is deliberately leading a man astray.

The influence of moral right is so potent, that it eclipses the specious appearance of expediency.

There are splendid examples in history where the apparent expediency of the state has been set at naught out of regard for moral rectitude.

Still, to debar foreigners from enjoying the advantages of the city is altogether contrary to the laws of humanity.

Through a specious appearance of expediency wrong is very often committed in transactions between state and state, as by our own country in the destruction of Corinth.

But an upright man will never for a friend's sake do anything in violation of his country's interests or his oath or his sacred honour, not even if he sits as judge in a friend's case; for he lays aside the rôle of friend when he assumes…

But for our guidance in all such cases we have a rule that is short and easy to master: apparent advantages--political preferment, riches, sensual pleasures, and the like--should never be preferred to the obligations of friendship.

Thus in the stadium of life, it is not unfair for anyone to seek to obtain what is needful for his own advantage, but he has no right to wrest it from his neighbour.

And so expediency gained the day because of its moral lightness; for without moral rectitude there could have been no possible expediency.

Many cases oftentimes arise to perplex our minds with a specious appearance of expediency: the question raised in these cases is not whether moral rectitude is to be sacrificed to some considerable advantage (for that would of course be…

Now, suppose a wise man had just such a ring, he would not imagine that he was free to do wrong any more than if he did not have it; for good men aim to secure not secrecy but the right.

For if we have only made some real progress in the study of philosophy, we ought to be quite convinced that, even though we may escape the eyes of gods and men, we must still do nothing that savours of greed or of injustice, of lust or of…

Those actions, therefore, should not be considered at all, the mere consideration of which is itself morally wrong.

For there is guilt in their very deliberation, even though they never reach the performance of the deed itself.

For with a false perspective they see the material rewards but not the punishment--I do not mean the penalty of the law, which they often escape, but the heaviest penalty of all, their own demoralization.

But if there is nothing so repugnant to nature as immorality (for nature demands right and harmony and consistency and abhors their opposites), and if nothing is so thoroughly in accord with nature as expediency, then surely expediency and…

But if upon closer inspection one sees that there is some immorality connected with what presents the appearance of expediency, then one is not necessarily to sacrifice expediency but to recognize that there can be no expediency where…

But thus guided in his decision, the good man will always perform his duty, promoting the general interests of human society on which I am so fond of dwelling.

This attitude demolishes the whole structure of civil society.