For an act to be moral the ...

For an act to be moral the intention must be based on compassion, not duty. We do something because we want to do it, because we feel we have to do it, not because we ought to do it. And even if our efforts fail - or we never even get to implement them - we are still moral because our motivation was based on compassion.
For an act to be moral the intention must be based on compassion, not duty. We do something because we want to do it, because we feel we have to do it, not because we ought to do it. And even if our efforts fail - or we never even get to implement them - we are still moral because our motivation was based on compassion.
 Arthur Schopenhauer

Quotes from the same author

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer