Quotes About Ethics

How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action?

Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no man's rights; he will rather have regard for every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness.

Mitleid mit den Thieren hängt mit der Güte des Charakters so genau zusammen, daß man zuversichtlich behaupten darf, wer gegen Thiere grausam ist, könne kein guter Mensch seyn.

It can truly be said: Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls.

Compassion is the basis of all morality

No animal ever torments another for the mere purpose of tormenting, but man does it, and it is this that constitutes the diabolical feature in his character which is so much worse than the merely animal.

Since long ago all peoples have recognized that the world, apart from its physical meaning, also has a moral one. Yet everywhere the matter has only come to a vague consciousness, which, as it sought expression, clothed itself in all sorts of images and myths. There are religions.

Virtue is as little taught as is genius; indeed, the concept is just as unfruitful for it as it is for art, and in the case of both can be used only as an instrument. We should therefore be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics would create virtuous, noble, and holy men, as that our aesthetics would produce poets, painters, and musicians.

What a bad conscience religion must have is to be judged by the fact that it is forbidden under pain of such severe punishment to mock it. - On Religion

For to kill a man in a fair fight, is to prove that you are superior to him in strength or skill; and to justify the deed, you must assume that the right of the stronger is really a right.

Conscience accompanies every act with the comment: You should act differently, although its true sense is: You could be other than you are.

The actual facts of morality are too much on my side for me to fear that my theory can ever be replaced or upset by any other.

cur numeri musici et modi, qui voces sunt, moribus similes sese exhibent? ): Probl. c.

The agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer.

Virtue cannot be taught, no more than genius…We would thus be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics might awaken the virtuous, noble, and saintly as that our aesthetics might awaken poets, sculptors, and musicians.

Decir la verdad y después prenderse fuego. Esa es la tarea del filósofo.

In its death throes, we see religion clinging to morality, whose mother it would like to pretend to be. In vain! – genuine morality is dependent on no religion, although religion sanctions and thereby sustains it.

purse-honora y provecho no caben en un saco.

For boundless compassion for all living beings is the firmest and most certain guarantee of moral good conduct and requires no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will certainly injure no one, infringe on no one, do no one harm, rather, forbear everyone, forgive everyone, help everyone as much as he can, and all his actions will carry the imprint of justice and loving kindness.

Reason recognized from this the fact that, both to lessen the suffering spread among everyone and to distribute it as uniformly as possible, the best and only means is to spare everyone the pain of suffering wrong by having everyone renounce the enjoyment attainable by wrongdoing.

The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.

Every ought simply has no sense and meaning except in relation to threatened punishment or promised reward … . Thus every ought is necessarily conditioned through punishment or reward, hence, to put it in Kant's terms, essentially and inevitably hypothetical [with if-clause] and never, as he maintains categorical [without if-clause] … Therefore an absolute ought is simply a contradictio in adjecto.

El mundo es malo, como se viene diciendo desde hace mucho tiempo: los salvajes se comen unos a otros y los civilizados se engañan mutuamente, y a eso es a lo que damos el nombre del progreso.

It is no longer sufficient to love others as himself and to do as much for them as he would do for himself; rather, a repugnance arises in him… towards the will-to-live, towards the core and essence of that world recognized as filled with misery.