Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a general natural law.

Immanuel Kant in Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics
Added by Lucian Velea
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To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations.... For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination.

Immanuel Kant in Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics
Added by Lucian Velea
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