Quotes About Ethics

If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.

There's nothing of any importance in life - except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics they'll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard.

A house can have integrity, just like a person,' said Roark, 'and just as seldom.

Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.

Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.

There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.

You want to do it? I might. If you offer me enough. Howard—anything you ask. Anything. I'd sell my soul... That's the sort of thing I want you to understand. To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul—would you understand why that's much harder?

An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes.

Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.

When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, Who is destroying the world? You are.

The cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values.

I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life.

Only the man who extols the purity of love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.

In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.

I loathe your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved.

It is a sin to write this.

Morality is a code of black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit.

To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation , an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as the right to enslave .

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that "doesn't count," i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.

I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society.

An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

Married people dont look like they have bedrooms on their minds when they look at each other. In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both...Not both.