Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Ethics judges intentions while law judges actions.
In plain terms
You can be morally guilty for thinking bad things even if you do not do them.
What can you take from it?
Intentions matter in ethics even if actions do not happen.

Where it applies

  • moral decisions
  • legal cases
  • self-reflection

Putting it to work

  • check your motives
  • respect rights
  • think before acting

Questions to consider

  • Is thinking about crime wrong?
  • How do you judge yourself?

Another view

Law cannot punish thoughts without action.

More from Immanuel Kant

  1. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.

    Permalink to quote #53
  2. Intuition and concepts constitute... the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor in…

    Permalink to quote #55
  3. If we attend to the course of conversation in mixed companies consisting not merely of scholars and subtle reasoners but also of business people or women, we n…

    Permalink to quote #52

Related quotes

  1. [An attorney] can find it consistent with his dignity to turn wrong into right, and right into wrong, to abet a lie, nay to create, disseminate, and with all t…

    Anthony TrollopeAnthony Trollope quote #1
  2. Monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder - just as animals are…

    Andrew SullivanAndrew Sullivan quote #1
  3. 'There are two sides to reconciliation; the law aspect and the moral values. Unless there is improvement for both, changes will not come by easily.' (15 May 20…

    Taito WaradiTaito Waradi quote #1