Quotes About Morality

Lately I have come to believe that the principle difference between Heaven and Hell is the company you keep there....

So the difference between a criminal and a hero is the order in which their vile crimes are committed. And justice comes with a sell-by date. In that case, you'd better hurry. You wouldn't want your heroism to spoil.

integrity is a disease, and you can only catch it from someone who has it.

He said that permitting private judgments to turn my duty in the smallest matter would be just like getting a little bit pregnant -- that the consequences would very soon get beyond me.

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.... The friction tends to arise when the two are not the same....There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.

You want to be good. All right, I can understand that. But you have to be careful who you let define your good.

Save me from the virtuous.

You may have slandered an honest man. Or you may have struck a blow for justice. I don't know. The point is... neither do you.

Lately, I have come to believe that the principal difference between heaven and hell is the company you keep there.

Hold to virtue—if you can identify it—and trust that the duty set before you is the duty desired of you. And that the talents given to you are the talents you should place in the gods' service. Believe that the gods ask for nothing back that they have not first lent to you. Not even your life.

A Caligula, or a Yuri Vorbarra, can rule a long time, while the best men hesitate to do what is necessary to stop him, and the worst ones take advantage.

She considered the familiar conundrum inherent in complimenting a child for doing something well in the course of what ought not to have been done at all, and kept her peace.

People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large.

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.... The friction tends to arise when the tow are not the same....There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. that's soul destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.

There is nothing, nothing, nothing more important to me in the men and women I train than their absolute personal integrity.

I guess it just doesn't look very heroic to sneak up behind somebody and shoot them in the back. I can't help thinking it would be more efficient, though.

People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture.

Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation

Pen wondered at a world that hanged poor men for thievery, but celebrated great ones

The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present—they are real." His voice fell, as he spoke, so that by the end he was almost whispering.

There is nothing, nothing, nothing more important to me in the men and women I train than their absolute personal integrity. Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool the metal. That's all.

Dr. Yei," Bannerji objected, "if you're trying to knock a man out you've got to hit him a lot harder than that." Yei recoiled fearfully as Van Atta surged up out of his seat. "I didn't want to risk killing him . . ." "Why not?" muttered Bannerji under his breath. Furiously

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself. There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating. Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.

Even as a learned divine it was not his place to judge men's souls. The gods in their time would do so without fail and with much fuller knowledge.