Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

It’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings.

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

Sometimes we look at gay being a bigger sin than being proud or not telling the truth. I don’t think God categorizes sins.

The soul is your innermost being. The presence that you are beyond form. The consciousness that you are beyond form, that is the soul. That is who you are in essence.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.

The role of the intellectual cannot be to excuse the violence of one side and condemn that of the other.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.

No obligation to do the impossible is binding.

To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.

No public man can be just a little crooked.

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

Trouble brews when we steal from the poor and give to the rich.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

Of course, animals have to be killed for food or to prevent their doing injury to others or to property. But such killing is too often carried out without regard to the pain inflicted.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

Justice is truth in action.

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason!

No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.

Forgiveness is not a feeling – it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God. It’s a quality decision that won’t be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

To be is to do.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.

An individual’s refusal to carry out the criminal acts of his government sets the stage, in the most effective way possible, for the attempt to demonstrate the criminal nature of these acts.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty.

One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.