Quotes About Ethics

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

Most vices may be committed very genteelly: a man may debauch his friend's wife genteelly: he may cheat at cards genteelly.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

[Sunday] should be different from another day. People may walk, but not throw stones at birds. There may be relaxation, but there should be no levity.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Everybody's private motto: It's better to be popular than right.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

Focusing on sufficient protections, human rights norms and politics have selectively emphasized one aspect of social justice, scanting in particular the distributional victory of the rich. It is as if in our highest ethics, material gains for the poor were all that could matter, either morally or strategically, when human rights placed any stress on material injustice at all.

But strictly speaking, human rights do not necessarily call for a modicum of distributive equality. And a concern for human rights, including economic and social rights, has risen as moral commitments to distributive equality fell.

A good honest and painful sermon.

God forgive me, I was sorry to hear that Sir W Pens maid Betty was gone away yesterday, for I was in hopes to have had a bout with her before she had gone, she being very pretty. I have also a mind to my own wench, but I dare not, for fear she should prove honest and refuse and then tell my wife.

I saw the girl of the house, being very pretty, go into a chamber, and I went in after her and kissed her.

He showed me a black boy that he had, that died of a consumption, and being dead, he caused him to be dried in an oven, and lies there entire in a box.

Truth is what's important in the world. But is what's important always the truth?

I wanted to get out, Vyme, to keep going and not be trapped, to be free.... only I was cruel. I had the chance to do it, and I took it. Why is that bad, Vyme? Unless, of course, that's what being free means.

The whole mechanism of guilt as a deterrent to right action is just as much a linguistic fault.

The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue.