Quotes About Ethics

In his reflections on rebellion, Albert Camus argues that one cannot kill unless one is prepared to die.11 But that argument does not seem to apply to soldiers in battle, where the whole point is to kill while avoiding getting killed. And yet there is a wider sense in which Camus is right. Just

Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.

From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well...

It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account.

No one should be subjected to force over things which belonged to him.

Il n'est si homme de bien, qu'il mette à l'examen des loix toutes ses actions et pensées, qui ne soit pendable dix fois en sa vie. (There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.)

If virtue cannot shine bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from her that she derives her reputation and honor?

I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it.

The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly; its grandeur does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in mediocrity.

I am not so shocked by savages who roast and eat the bodies of their dead as by those who torture and persecute the living.

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.

It is quite normal to see good intentions, when not carried out with moderation, urging men to actions which are truly vicious.

L'honneste est stable et permanent.

J'accuse toute violence en l'education d'une ame tendre, qu'on dresse pour l'honneur, et la liberté.

A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing.

One may cover over secret actions, but to be silent on what all the world knows, and things which have had effects which are public and of so much consequence is an inexcusable defect.

Profiting little by good examples, I make use of those that are ill, which are everywhere to be found: I endeavor to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as constant as I see others fickle; as affable as I see others rough; as good as I see others evil: but I propose to myself impracticable measures.

The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory.

Nature a, (ce crains-je) elle mesme attaché à l'homme quelque instinct à l'inhumanité

Most of our desires are born and nurtured at other people's expense.

What a prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself whilst it harbors under the same roof, with so agreeing and so calm a society, both the crime and the judge?

The way of truth is one and artless: the way of private gain and success in such affairs as we are entrusted with is double, uneven and fortuitous. I

when Dandamys the Wise heard accounts of the lives of Socrates, Pythagoras and Diogenes, he said that they were in every way great personalities, except for their being too subject to venerating the Law: for, to support Law with its authority, true virtue must doff much of its original vigour; and many vicious deeds are done not merely with the Law's permission but at its instigation:13