Quotes About Ethics

Because the things you have, and the neighborhood you live in, doesn't have anything to do with what kind of human being you are.

If journalism is good, it is controversial, by its nature.

Intelligence agencies keep things secret because they often violate the rule of law or of good behavior.

La moral es una autoridad superior al derecho.

Do the gods choose what is good because it is good, or is the good good because the gods choose it? If the first option is true, then the good is independent of the gods. But if the second option is true, then the very idea of what is good becomes arbitrary.

Morality is more than possible without God, it is entirely independent of him.

Is it how we feel or how we think that is more important in determining whether we are morally good human beings?

If we live with a good heart, good speech, and good action life will be good.

It is intuitively plausible that if something has endured for centuries, there must be something in it. But on that logic, there must be something in slavery and the inequality of women.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

Good and evil, which were once as distinguishable as day and night, have become a blurred mist. But that mist is man-made. God is not silent. He has been silenced.

as a boy when his mother told him to listen to the voice inside him to help him tell the difference between right and wrong, nothing happened. He concluded that "either I was too wicked to have a conscience or too good to need one".

As long as there are religions, there are going to be people who are hiding their rottenness behind the veil of religion.

And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry, they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But, after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies, I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.

Is it wrong to kill something that wants to kill you?

I know guys aren't supposed to cry, but I cried a bunch that night. And I guess that's when I decided being good at something didn't mean you had to do it. Just 'cause something's easy doesn't make it right.

Every time I do anything, I have to ask myself: Is it a good role, and is it right to do it? There may be sex or nudity or violence in the script, and then you have to say: Is it gratuitous just out to shock people? Or is it there because it has to be? If a role demands it, and it isn't gratuitous, I'll do it. It's my job, after all. I'm an actress.

How much wreckage and destruction justifies the creation of a better world?

I find it hard to follow a party line. I'm too much of a populist -- which is why I'm against hunting but pro hanging. I find it quite hard to find like-minded souls.

Shame, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.

So, I'm getting less chips, paying the same amount of money. Is that legal for them to do this?

For the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the suspension of their own mores when they came in contact with the Indian nations was quite the opposite of battle, bringing not horrors, but the guiltless pleasure of a liaison unlike any in the United States- unlike any, because it didn't have to be arranged, induced, concealed, limited, remunerated, or sanctified.

The newsletter's editor, Ted Cogswell, illustrated an issue with pictures of naked women—intended, he said, as a joke. Suzy Charnas informed him that this kind of "joke" was aggression disguised as humor.

I took a bite of lobster meat with rice. It was quite tasty. 'Arguing the morality of slaughter will send you into a tailspin of self-loathing every time.' 'Unless you're a vegan.' 'Uh-huh. But then you're a vegan and you don't count.