Quotes About Ethics

we imagine Him sadistic not because He made us that way, but because we are ourselves that way.

When it is possible to duplicate the one you love, there is no more loved one, there is only the mockery of love, and when it is possible to become anyone at all and hold whatever convictions you like, then you are already no one and can hold no convictions.

Reverend Father, your line of thought has taken a dangerous path! Just another step, and you'll be telling me offspring can be produced not at the drawing board, by testing prototypes in a laboratory, with the highest concentration of the spirit in the metal, but in a bed, without any templates or training, at random, in the dark, and quite unintentionally . . .

DüÅŸün ki ben bir bak???kçan?n mimarisinin t?pk?üretimini yapabilme yetisindeyim, bileÅŸimini biliyorum, gerekli teknolojim var... bir bak???kça yarat?yorum ve okyanusa b?rak?yorum. Ama bunu niye yapt???m? bilmiyorum, iÅŸlevini bilmiyorum, bak???kçan?n okyanus için ne anlama geldiÄŸini bilmiyorum...

Pirx had long ago observed that a man could be judged better by his behavior toward robots than toward his fellow man.

This was how I saw it: the Senders definitely had had no intention of sending us a Pandora's box; but we, like burglars, forced the lock, and stamped upon the plundered contents everything that in Earth's science was mercenary, predatory.

Kryterium zdrowego rozsÄ…dku nie jest do historii ludzkiej stosowalne. Czy Averroes, Kant, Sokrates. Newton, Wolter, uwierzyliby, ?e w wieku dwudziestym plagÄ… miast, trucicielem pÅ'uc, masowym mordercÄ…, przedmiotem kultu stanie siÄ™ blaszany wózek na kóÅ'kach i ?e ludzie bÄ™dÄ… woleli gin?? w nim rozstrzaskiwani podczas masowych weekendowych wyjazdów, ani?eli siedzie? caÅ'o w domu?

cybernetician.

What was civilization ever, really, but the attempt by man to talk himself into being good? Only good mind you. The rest had to be shoved somewhere out of sight, under the rug. Which History did at times politely, at times police-ly, and yet something was always sticking out, breaking lose, overthrowing.

The beauty part of business warfare, unless your business is importing cocaine from Colombia or covering up a nuclear fuel spill in the Midwest, is that there is rarely any actual blood involved. Maybe that's why we can forgive Sun Tzu now and then for being such a careful sissy-boy. His guys were playing with live ammo, not cell phones and BlackBerrys.

Clear spirits destroy karma. Brown spirits build karma.

The worst things are done not by people who believe they are doing wrong, but by those who are convinced that they walk with the hand of God on one shoulder.

Kazanmak bir insan?n güçlü olduÄŸunu deÄŸil terbiyeden yoksun olduÄŸunu gösteriyordu.

Just as some historians seemed more shocked that the author of the Declaration of Independence had sex with Sally Hemmings than by the fact that he owned her, Clinton received far more censure for his sexual misdeeds than for other moral lapses, such as his politically motivated decision to ignore the finding of a bipartisan panel that issuing needles to drug addicts would save lives and curtail the spread of AIDS without increasing drug addiction.

Despite humane intentions, an overemphasis on personal responsibility for strengthening family values encourages a way of thinking that leads to moralizing rather than mobilizing for concrete reforms.

one who loves himself should not harm others.

He has no interest in pursuing an abstract argument to demonstrate a purely theoretical truth. His practical reason is ethical. Its first principle could be stated thus: Do no evil, Take up what is good, Purify the mind— This is the teaching of buddhas.11 In seeing conditioned arising as a "ground," Gotama implies that insight into conditionality provides "grounds" on which to act.

If Buddhists choose to model their lives on the liberated arahant—or the idealized Mahayana bodhisattva, for that matter—rather than follow the example of Gotama, then I wonder how Buddhism will find a compelling voice to address the pressing issues of our world today.

If our actions in the world are to stem from an encounter with what is central in life, they must be unclouded by either dogma or prevarication. Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.

We do teach our kids the golden rule - Do as you would be done by.

My God,' said Josh Morris, sounding aghast. 'What have we done?' And he laughed.

And I never felt that good in my life. But I also felt bad because I saw her naked without her permission.

In French eyes, it was of course doubly wrong to execute a beautiful woman.

Religion forces every individual to take responsibility. Specifically, take it away from yourself and give it to God. If we had to be accountable for every one of our actions, we'd be crippled with indecision. But with religion pointing the way, we can feel confident in our choice to picket our children's elementary school when we find out the art teacher is gay.