“Whatever goes wrong can be used to your advantage, providing it goes wrong enough.”
Source: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”
Last update June 3, 2021.
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Marcus Tullius Cicero 180
Roman philosopher and statesman -106–-43 BCRelated quotes
Jerzy Vetulani
(1936–2017) Polish scientist
Woźniak, Olga; Vetulani, Jerzy (24 December 2011): Stań się dobrym. To się opłaca, interview. Gazeta Wyborcza (in Polish).
Alexis De Tocqueville
(1805–1859) French political thinker and historian
De la supériorité des mœurs sur les lois (1831) Oeuvres complètes, vol. VIII, p. 286 https://books.google.de/books?id=yrMFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA286&dq=meilleures.
Original text:
Les meilleures lois ne peuvent faire marcher une constitution en dépit des mœurs ; les mœurs tirent parti des pires lois. C'est là une vérité commune, mais à laquelle mes études me ramènent sans cesse. Elle est placée dans mon esprit comme un point central. Je l'aperçois au bout de toutes mes idées.
1830s
Context: The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.
III, 7
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book III
Henry Adams
(1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, iii. 7
Misattributed
Kenneth Arrow
(1921–2017) American economist
Kenneth Arrow, "Ricardo's Work as Viewed by Later Economists" (1988)
1970s-1980s
Merrick Garland
(1952) American judge
[Merrick Garland, Confirmation hearing on nomination of Merrick Garland to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, United States Senate, December 1, 1995]; quote excerpted in:
[March 18, 2016, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/03/16/judge-merrick-garland-in-his-own-words/, Judge Merrick Garland, In His Own Words, Joe Palazzolo, March 16, 2016, The Wall Street Journal]
Confirmation hearing on nomination to United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1995)
Christian D. Larson
(1874–1962) Prolific author of metaphysical and New Thought books
Source: Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912), Chapter 3, p. 50