Great Throughts Treasury

"The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity." - Francis Maitland Balfour

"The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity." - Benjamin Franklin

"There is but one rule of conduct for a man - to do the right thing. The cost may be dear in money, in friends, in influence, in labor, in a prolonged and painful sacrifice, but the cost not to do right is far more dear: You pay in the integrity of your manhood, in your honor, in strength of character; and, for a timely gain, you barter the infinite." - Archer G. Jones

"I know of no book which has been a source of brutality and sadistic conduct, both public and private, that can compare with the Bible." - Lord Paget, Sir James Paget, 1st Baronet

"Each time you are honest and conduct yourself with honesty, a success force will drive you toward greater success. Each time you lie, even with a little white lie, there are strong forces pushing you toward failure." - Joseph Sugarman

"Politics is the conduct of public affairs for private advantage." - Ambrose Gwinett Bierce

"In an age in which mankind’s collective power has suddenly been increased, for good or evil, a thousandfold through the tapping of atomic energy, the standard of conduct demanded from ordinary human beings can be no lower than the standard in times past by rare saints." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee

"In an age in which mankind’s collective power has suddenly been increased, for good or evil, a thousand-fold through the tapping of atomic energy, the standard of conduct demanded from ordinary human beings can be no lower than the standard attained in times past by rare saints." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee

"Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on man’s rights; he will rather have regard for everyone, forgive everyone, help everyone as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Circumstances are beyond the control of man; but his conduct is in his own power." - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

"The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct." - Blaise Pascal

"If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others." - Blaise Pascal

"It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us, than the powerful whom we have injured. The conduct will be continued by our fears which commenced in our resentment." - Charles Caleb Colton

"In an age remarkable for good reasoning and bad conduct, for sound rules and corrupt manners, when virtue fills our heads, but vice our hearts; when those who would fain persuade us that they are quite sure of heaven, appear in no greater hurry to go there than other folks, but put on the livery of the best master only to serve the worst; in an age when modesty herself is more ashamed of detection than delinquency; when independence of principle consists in having no principle on which to depend; and free thinking, not in thinking freely, but in being free from thinking; in an age when patriots will hold anything except their tongues; keep anything except their word; and lose nothing patiently except their character; to improve such an age must be difficult; to instruct it dangerous; and he stands no chance of amending it who cannot at the same time amuse it." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Who are they that would have all mankind look backward instead of forward, and regulate their conduct by things that have been done? Those who are most ignorant as to all things that are doing. Bacon said, time is the greatest of innovators; he might also have said the greatest of improvers." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Do not others expect from children more perfect conduct then they themselves exhibit? If a gracious child should lose his temper or act wrongly in some trifling thing through forgetfulness, straight-away he is condemned as a little hypocrite by those who are a long way from being perfect themselves." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one." - Chinese Proverbs

"Wisdom, compassion and courage - these are three universally recognized moral qualities of man. It matters not in what way men come to the exercise of these moral qualities, the result is one and the same. When a man understands the nature and use of these three moral qualities, he will then understand how to put in order his personal conduct and character; he will understand how to govern men." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"The superior man is slow in his words and earnest in his conduct." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"When a prince’s personal conduct is correct, his government is effective without the issuing of orders. If his personal conduct is not correct, he may issue orders, but they will not be followed." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"Force can only overcome other force. When it has done this, it has spent itself and other means of influencing conduct have to be employed." - Dean Acheson, fully Dean Gooderham Acheson

"We may give advice, but we cannot inspire conduct." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and founder of society." - Edmund Burke

"Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails." - Emma Goldman

"Weakness of conduct is but the consequence of weakness of conviction; for the strongest of all the springs of human action is human belief." - François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot

"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality." - George Washington

"The average person thinks that morality can be applied as directly to the conduct of states to each other as it can to human relations. That is not always the case, because sometimes statesmen have to choose among evils." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger

"In reference to our moral conduct, there is not a single principle now known to the most cultivated Europeans which was not likewise known to the ancients." - Henry Thomas Buckle

"Morality is character and conduct, such as is required by the circle or community in which the man’s life happens to be placed." - Henry Ward Beecher

"The Bible stands alone in human literature in its elevated conception of manhood, in character and conduct." - Henry Ward Beecher

"Morality is character and conduct such as is required by the circle or community in which the man’s life happens to be passed. It shows how much good men require of us." - Henry Ward Beecher

"It must be admitted that the conception of virtue cannot be separated from the conception of happiness-producing conduct." - Herbert Spencer

"It is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true consequences of their conduct." - Herbert Spencer

"The highest conduct is that which conduces to the greatest length, breadth, and completeness of life." - Herbert Spencer

"When a child can be brought to tears, not from fear of punishment, but from repentance for his offense, he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from grief at one’s own conduct, be sure there is an angel nestling in the bosom." - Horace Mann

"Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is at once best in quality and infinite in quantity." - Horace Mann

"Keep one thing forever in view - the truth; and if you do this, though it may seem to lead you away from the opinions of men, it will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God." - Horace Mann

"Be so that thy conduct can be law universal." - Immanuel Kant

"If we attend to the experience of men’s conduct, we meet frequent and, as we ourselves allow, just complaints that one cannot find a single certain example of the disposition to act from pure duty. Although many things are done in conformity with what duty prescribes, it is nevertheless always doubtful whether they are done strictly from duty, so as to have moral worth." - Immanuel Kant

"Not only are moral laws with their principles essentially distinguished from every other kind of practical knowledge in which there is anything empirical, but all moral philosophy rests wholly on its pure part. When applied to man, it does not borrow the least thing from the knowledge of man himself (anthropology), but gives laws a priori to him as a rational being. No doubt these laws require a judgment sharpened by experience, in order on the one hand to distinguish in what cases they are applicable, and on the other to procure for them access to the will of the man and effectual influence on conduct; since man is acted on by so many inclinations that, though capable of the idea of a practical pure reason, he is not so easily able to make it effective in concreto in his life." - Immanuel Kant

"The whole course of our life must be subject to moral maxims; but this is impossible, unless with the moral law, which is a mere idea, reason connects an efficient cause which ordains to all conduct which conforms to the moral law an issue either in this or another life, which is in exact conformity with our highest aims." - Immanuel Kant

"An imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it...is categorical. It concerns not the matter of the action, or its intended result, but its form and the principle of which it is itself a result; and what is essentially good in it consists in the mental disposition, let the consequence be what it may. The imperative may be called that of Morality." - Immanuel Kant

"It is not right for men to seek happiness or wish to be happy, rather they should wish so to conduct their lives that they deserve to be happy." - Immanuel Kant

"The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour." - Japanese Proverbs

"In all human minds, in howsoever widely different proportions, self-regard, and sympathy for others or say extra-regard have place. But, in self-regard even sympathy has its root: and if, in the general tenour of human conduct, self-regard were not prevalent over sympathy - even over sympathy for all others put together, no such species as the human could have existed." - Jeremy Bentham

"Confront improper conduct, not by retaliation, but by example." - John Foster, fully John Watson Foster

"What a superlatively grand and consoling idea is that of death! Without this radiant idea - this delightful morning star, indicting that the luminary of eternity is going to rise, life would, to my view, darken into midnight melancholy. The expectation of living here, and living thus always, would be indeed a prospect of overwhelming despair. But thanks to that fatal decree that dooms us to die; thanks to that gospel which opens the vision of an endless life; and thanks above all to that Saviour friend who has promised to conduct the faithful through the sacred trance of death, into scenes of Paradise and everlasting delight." - John Foster, fully John Watson Foster

"As soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes open to discussion." - John Stuart Mill

"Customs are made for customary circumstances and customary characters... The mind itself is bowed to the yoke; even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds: they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have not nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own." - John Stuart Mill