Quotes About Ethics

There is no ultimate arbiter of right or wrong. In the whole vast universe, there is nobody who knows what you should do in any given situation any better than you do — not your mom and dad, not your best friend Alice, not the president or the pope, and certainly not God.

We always tend to think we can become happier by getting what we want, even if that means we have to make someone else suffer.

Deferring to authority is nothing more than a cowardly shirking of personal responsibility. The more power you grant an authority figure the worse you can behave in his name. That's why people who take God as their ultimate authority are always capable of the worst humanity has to offer.

Buddhist morality includes everything we do. You can never know just how far-reaching the effects of your actions might be.

This is always and inevitably the case. No one gets away with murder. No one gets away with anything. You can't escape the consequences of your immoral acts any more than someone who drops a big-ass amp directly on his foot can escape having broken toe-bones. Your life and the life of everyone else in the universe are one seamless whole. To cause another living being pain isn't evil-it's just stupid. Because that being is you.

We're very bold in our proclamations of our own moral rectitude, but then we neglect to even keep our own toilets clean.

Keeping the precepts and observing pure moral conduct is the habit of Buddhists. But even those who haven't formally received the precepts or have broken them can benefit from doing zazen.

If it doesn't sound like "don't be a jerk" it's not Buddhist teaching.

Why would you clone people when you can go to bed with them and make a baby? C'mon, it's stupid.

Euthanasia" is an excellent and comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it.

Love passionately . . . but also responsibly.

On the back of every right, there's a wrong looming.

I find it a challenge to respect capable people who care only for their own interests.

Much of morality is peculiar to mortality.

Being good or evil is a choice.

Never out of shame or to win favor

Choices determine character.

Men rarely see their own actions as unjustified.

We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.

Inappropriate?" Pattern said. "Such as Ã¢â'¬Â¦ dividing by zero?

It was strange, how easily and quickly protection could cause destruction. Sometimes, Vasher wondered if the two weren't really the same thing. Protect a flower, destroy pests who wanted to feed on it. Protect a building, destroy the plants that could have grown in the soil. Protect a man. Live with the destruction he creates.

It has always seemed to me that a coward is a person who cares more about what people say than about what is right. Bravery isn't about what people call you, Spensa. It's about who you know yourself to be.

There are two kinds of people in this world, son. Those who save lives, and those who take lives." "And what of those who protect and defend? Those who save lives by taking lives?" "That's like trying to stop a storm by blowing harder. Ridiculous. You can't protect by killing.

In the end, I must proclaim that no good can be achieved of false means. For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method.