This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
To enjoy and give enjoyment, without injury to yourself or others: this is true morality.
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Behavior | Death | Education | Fear | Hope | Man | Punishment | Reward | Sympathy |
Its effects on the soul is to be measured neither by the guilt nor by the temporal punishment inexorably fixed, but by that deep sense of loneliness it brings with it.
Guilt | Loneliness | Punishment | Sense | Soul |
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are only injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
Government | Government |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
One ought to both be feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting… Love is held by a chain of obligation, which men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Dread | Fear | Love | Men | Obligation | Punishment | Purpose | Purpose |
Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard
Failure is not our only punishment for laziness: there is also the success of others.
Failure | Laziness | Punishment | Success |
In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self, and should therefore refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear undesirable to us if inflicted upon ourselves.
In deciding what course of action is moral, you should act as if there were no God. You should act as if there were no threat of earthly punishment or reward. You should be a person of good character because it is right to be such a person.
Action | Character | God | Good | Punishment | Reward | Right |
The truly moral person is the one who does the right thing without any promise of reward or threat of punishment - without engaging in a cost-benefit analysis.
Cost | Promise | Punishment | Reward | Right |
The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, cunning, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment – or at least much handicap – to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.
Capitalism | Compassion | Cunning | Giving | Honesty | Justice | Little | Love | Need | Play | Punishment | Reward | Work |
Men who have no property can injure one another only in their persons or reputations. But when one man kills, wounds, beats, or defames another, thought he to whom the injury is done suffers, he who does it receives no benefit. It is otherwise with the injuries to property. The benefit of the person who does the injury is often equal to the loss of him who suffers.