Quotes About Ethics

Cuando un negocio fracasa, miles de personas se quedan sin empleo o endeudadas; sus directos se escabullen llevándose millones en bonos y en fulgurantes apretones de mano. Y, sin embargo, a ninguno de estos rufianes, que son los responsables, se les escupe, ¡por no decir se les fusila!

Si no se puede enseñar el amor, ¿se puede enseñar el odio?

It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet.

If you don't stand for anything, you don't stand for anything!

Those who based decisions on principle, not some snapshot of public opinion, were often vindicated over time.

voters base their decisions on values as much as any other factor.

always stressed that the comforts they enjoyed came with a responsibility to give back.

I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are. [after the Navy warship USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in a commercial air corridor, killing 290 civilians]

Be not glad at the misfortune of another, though he may be your enemy.

if to please the people,we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The rest is in the hands of God.

I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.

Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, for example is more prevalent than precepts.

George Washington famously warned against ... 'ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear

Saya harap, saya selalu memiliki cukup keteguhan dan cukup kebajikan untuk memelihara gelar yang saya anggap paling mengagumkan, yaitu watak sebagai orang jujur.

Do not suffer your good nature [...] to say yes when you ought to say no; remember that it is a public not a private cause that is to be injured or benefitted by your choice

Eskimo: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? Priest: No, not if you did not know. Eskimo: Then why did you tell me? Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

89th: Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another though he were your enemy.

Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner] ... I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one

Labor to keep alive in your breaks that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

All attempts at law, all religion, all ethical norms might be nothing more than attempts by the weak to restrain the strong. Then, within the law, arise the new strong, who subvert the law for their own ends of power and family interest, leaving the old strong outside their circle to pursue the waiting possibilities which they call crime. The weak, the cowardly, the decent ones, live between these groups.