Joseph Butler Quotes

Thus there is no doubt the eye was intended for us to see with.

 

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.

 

 

This was the man, this Balaam, I say, was the man, who desired to die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like his; and this was the state of his mind when he pronounced these words.

 

 

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?

 

There is a much more exact correspondence between the natural and moral world than we are apt to take notice of.

 

The tongue may be employed about, and made to serve all the purposes of vice, in tempting and deceiving, in perjury and injustice.

 

The sum of the whole is plainly this: The nature of man considered in his single capacity, and with respect only to the present world, is adapted and leads him to attain the greatest happiness he can for himself in the present world.

 

The private interest of the individual would not be sufficiently provided for by reasonable and cool self-love alone; therefore the appetites and passions are placed within as a guard and further security, without which it would not be taken due care of.

 

 

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 object of self-love is expressed in the term self; and every appetite of sense, and every particular affection of the heart, are equally interested or disinterested, because the objects of them all are equally self or somewhat else.

The final causes, then, of compassion are to prevent and to relieve misery.

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.

 

People might love themselves with the most entire and unbounded affection, and yet be extremely miserable.

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.

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.

 

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.

 

However, without considering this connection, there is no doubt but that more good than evil, more delight than sorrow, arises from compassion itself; there being so many things which balance the sorrow of it.