Joseph Butler Quotes

34 Sourced Quotes

Virtue, as such, naturally procures considerable advantages to the virtuous.

Joseph Butler
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.

Joseph Butler
Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness; and likewise a variety of particular affections, passions, and appetites to particular external objects.

Joseph Butler
It has come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious.

Joseph Butler
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.

Joseph Butler
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.

Joseph Butler
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.

Joseph Butler
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.

Joseph Butler
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.

Joseph Butler