ethics quotes

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.

I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

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

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

If you’re in favour of any policy – reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever – if you’re at least minimally moral, it’s because you think it’s somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, exists when one goes against one’s conscience. To listen to and obey it means, in fact, to decide in face of what is perceived as good or evil. And on this decision pivots the goodness or malice of our action.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

I don’t have to see a murder in order to condemn murder.

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

Regardless of what society says, we can’t go on much longer in the sea of immorality without judgment coming.

To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.

Effective action is always unjust.

Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

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

States are not moral agents.

The time has come for all evangelists to practice full financial disclosure. The world is watching how we walk and how we talk. We must have the highest standards of morality, ethics and integrity if we are to continue to have influence.

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

I don’t use Twitter for bad.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

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

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Justice is truth in action.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

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.

It’s not that every single thing that happens on Facebook is gonna be good. This is humanity. People use tools for good and bad, but I think that we have a clear responsibility to make sure that the good is amplified and to do everything we can to mitigate the bad.

I think God gives every one of us our own will, and unfortunately, some people choose to do evil things with it.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

Life is about conduct and how we conduct ourselves. But two wrongs never make a right.

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren’t easy questions.

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

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

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

You cannot mix sports with politics.

We moralize among ruins.

We all have the duty to do good.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‚Is it safe?‘ Expediency asks the question, ‚Is it politic?‘ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‚Is it popular?‘ But Conscience asks the question, ‚Is it right?‘