Quotes About Ethics

It seems to me that if a man can so train himself that he may live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is necessary.

Her virtues were too numerous to describe, and not sufficiently interesting to deserve description.

Then in this country a man is to be punished or not, according to his ability to fee a lawyer!

Of course he had committed forgery;--of course he had committed robbery. That, indeed, was nothing, for he had been cheating and forging and stealing all his life.

Buying and selling is good and necessary; it is very necessary, and may, possibly, be very good; but it cannot be the noblest work of man; and let us hope that it may not in our time be esteemed the noblest work of an Englishman.

I should give such advice myself, knowing that a friend may give counsel as to outer things, but that a man must satisfy his inner conscience by his own perceptions of what is right and what is wrong.

John Bold said): If an action is the right one, personal feelings must not be allowed to interfere. Of course I greatly like Mr Harding, but that is no reason for failing in my duty to those old men.

There are general laws current in the world as to morality. 'Thou shalt not steal,' for instance. That has "necessarily been current as a law through all nations. But the first man you meet in the street will have ideas about theft so different from yours, that, if you knew them as you know your own, you would say that this law and yours were not even founded on the same principle.

If it comes to be a question of soul-saving, Mr. Bunce, I shan't save my place at the expense of my conscience." "Not if you knows it, you mean. But the worst of it is that a man gets so thick into the mud that he don't know whether he's dirty or clean. You'll have to wote as you're told, and of course you'll think it's right enough. Ain't you been among Parliament gents long enough to know that that's the way it goes?

You must take the world as you find it, with a struggle to be something more honest than those around you. Phineas, as he preached himself this sermon, declared to himself that they who attempted more than this flew too high in the clouds to be of service to men an women upon the earth

I don't know much about ladies' judgements," said the old man. "It does seem to me that when a lady makes a promise she ought to keep it." "According to that," said Kate, "if I were engaged to a man, and found that he was a murderer, I still ought to marry him.

The so-called Conservative, the conscientious, philanthropic Conservative, seeing this, and being surely convinced that such inequalities are of divine origin, tells himself that it is his duty to preserve them.

People seem to think that if a man is a Member of Parliament he may do what he pleases. ... Being in Parliament used to be something when I was young, but it won't make a make a gentleman now-a-days. It seems to me that none but brewers, and tallow-chandlers, and lawyers go into Parliament now.

he should consider himself to be standing in the place of Adelaide's father or brother. His wife pointed out to him that were he her father or her brother he could do nothing, — that in these days let a man behave ever so badly, no means of punishing was within reach of the lady's friends.

A man was not necessarily guilty of bribery in the eye of the law because bribery had been committed, even though the bribery so committed had been sufficiently proved to deprive him of the seat which he would otherwise have enjoyed.

To give him his due, he did not know that he was a villain.

A noble jilt, my dears," said Mrs. Carbuncle eloquently, "is a contradiction in terms. There can be no such thing. A woman, when she has once said the word, is bound to stick to it. The delicacy of the female character should not admit of hesitation between two men. The idea is quite revolting." "But may not one have an idea of no man at all?" — asked Lucinda. "Must that be revolting also?

Could a man be justified in marrying for money, or have rational ground for expecting that he might make himself happy by doing so?

We must take him as he is. He was put into the army very young, and was very young when he came into possession of his own small fortune. He might have done better; but how many young men placed in such temptations do well? As it is, he has nothing left." "I fear not." "And therefore is it not imperative that he should marry a girl with money?" "I call that stealing a girl's money, Lady Carbury.

What follows as a natural consequence? Men reconcile themselves to swindling. Though they themselves mean to be honest, dishonesty of itself is no longer odious to them. Then there comes the jealousy that others should be growing rich with the approval of all the world, — and the natural aptitude to do what all the world approves. It seems to me that the existence of a Melmotte is not compatible with a wholesome state of things in general.

Yes; — exactly. But what is to be the end of it? Is he to be allowed to ruin you and Hetta? It can't go on long." "You wouldn't have me throw him over." "I think he is throwing you over. And then it is so thoroughly dishonest, — so ungentlemanlike! I

is true that one must put up with wrong, with a great deal of wrong. But no one need put up with wrong that he can remedy.

I do not believe in a woman marrying a bad man in the hope of making him good." "Especially not when the woman is naturally inclined to evil herself.

A certain class of dishonesty … has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable.