James Fitzjames Stephen Quotes

The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen

The way in which the man of genius rules is by persuading an efficient minority to coerce an indifferent and self-indulgent majority. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen

The man who works from himself outwards, whose conduct is governed by ordinary motives, and who acts with a view to his own advantage and the advantage of those who are connected with himself in definite, assignable ways, produces in the ordinary course of things much more happiness to others (if that is the great object of life) than a moral Don Quixote who is always liable to sacrifice himself and his neighbours. James Fitzjames Stephen

The things which cannot be adequately represented by words are more important than those which can. James Fitzjames Stephen

Not only are the varieties of morality innumerable, but some of them are conflicting with each other. James Fitzjames Stephen

I believe that many men are bad, a vast majority of men indifferent, and many good, and that the great mass of indifferent people sway this way or that according to circumstances. James Fitzjames Stephen