Joseph Butler Quotes
The tongue may be employed about, and made to serve all the purposes of vice, in tempting and deceiving, in perjury and injustice.
Pain and sorrow and misery have a right to our assistance: compassion puts us in mind of the debt, and that we owe it to ourselves as well as to the distressed.
Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why then should we desire to be deceived?
Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food
Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited to our several particular appetites, passions, and affections.
Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to contribute to the good of others.
Love of our neighbour, then, has just the same respect to, is no more distant from, self-love, than hatred of our neighbour, or than love or hatred of anything else.
As this world was not intended to be a state of any great satisfaction or high enjoyment, so neither was it intended to be a mere scene of unhappiness and sorrow.
It is not at all incredible, that a book which has been so long in the possession of mankind should contain many truths as yet undiscovered.
People might love themselves with the most entire and unbounded affection, and yet be extremely miserable.
Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness; and likewise a variety of particular affections, passions, and appetites to particular external objects.
There is a much more exact correspondence between the natural and moral world than we are apt to take notice of.
Every one of our passions and affections hath its natural stint and bound, which may easily be exceeded; whereas our enjoyments can possibly be but in a determinate measure and degree.
Thus self-love as one part of human nature, and the several particular principles as the other part, are, themselves, their objects and ends, stated and shown.
The Epistles in the New Testament have all of them a particular reference to the condition and usages of the Christian world at the time they were written.
Self-love then does not constitute THIS or THAT to be our interest or good; but, our interest or good being constituted by nature and supposed, self-love only puts us upon obtaining and securing it.
Remember likewise there are persons who love fewer words, an inoffensive sort of people, and who deserve some regard, though of too still and composed tempers for you.
For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
Man may act according to that principle or inclination which for the present happens to be strongest, and yet act in a way disproportionate to, and violate his real proper nature.
The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of happiness or good: particular affections rest in the external things themselves.
The satisfaction that accompanies good acts is itself not the motivation of the act; satisfaction is not the motive, but only the consequence.
The love of liberty that is not a real principle of dutiful behavior to authority is as hypocritical as the religion that is not productive of a good life.
That which is the foundation of all our hopes and of all our fears; all our hopes and fears which are of any consideration; I mean a Future Life.
Virtue is not to be considered in the light of mere innocence, or abstaining from harm; but as the exertion of our faculties in doing good.
