Quotes from Sissela Bok

While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive.

We are all, in a sense, experts on secrecy. From earliest childhood we feel its mystery and attraction. We know both the power it confers and the burden it imposes. We learn how it can delight, give breathing space and protect.

Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives.

Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives.

Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived.

When we undertake to deceive others intentionally, we communicate messages meant to mislead them, meant to make them believe what we ourselves do not believe. We can do so through gesture, through disguise, by means of action or inaction, even through silence.

Trust and integrity are precious resources, easily squandered, hard to regain. They can thrive only on a foundation of respect for veracity.

The role that one assigns to truthfulness will always remain central in considering what kind of person one wants to be—how one wishes to treat, not only other people, but oneself.

Now as then, the various ideals of happiness carry fundamental moral teachings about how to live.

Evil means, he insisted, corrupt and degrade not only the purposes for which they are undertaken but also the persons who stoop to such means. Overcoming the urge to resort to such means is hardest when one aims to rectify past injustices. It is because 'hate the sin and not the sinner' is a precept so rarely practiced that 'the poison of hatred spreads in the world

Gandhi's insistence that personal change and the ability to bring about social change are linked. He warns that it is no use striving to implement principles such as nonviolence or justice in public affairs so long as one neglects them in one's personal life. And it is wise to begin in small and piecemeal ways.

Any awareness of how lies spread must generate a real sensitivity to the fact that most lies believed to be "white" are unnecessary if not downright undesirable.

Act only on the maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Whatever happens to human beings trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives.

It is not possible, many argue, to insist on respecting both difference and sameness when it comes to moral values: on honoring individual and cultural diversity while also holding that certain moral values go to the heart of what it means to be human and always have, since the beginning of time, and always must if we are not to lose touch with our humanity.

The great artist sees his objects (and this is true whether they are sad, absurd, repulsive or even evil) in a light of justice and mercy.

Honesty from health professionals matters more to patients than almost everything else that they experience when ill.

Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived.