Quotes About Ethics

I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.

And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.

And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.

I DON'T HOLD WITH CRUELTY TO CATS.

Never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.

Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn't do good for people, she did right by them.

I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.

I'm a witch. It's what we do. When it's nobody else's business, it's my business.

Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.

Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.

Where's the pleasure in bein' the winner if the loser ain't alive to know they've lost?

It's not lying when you do it to officers!

but what should we do when the highborn and wealthy take to crime? Indeed, if a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger, how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man who breaks the law out of greed?

It's hard to explain, said Brutha. But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave... you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.

you were so worried about legal and illegal that you never stopped to think about whether it was right or wrong.

THERE'S NO JUSTICE, said Mort. JUST US.

Good and bad is tricky, she said. I ain't too certain about where people stand. P'raps what matters is which way you face.

Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do.

Yes, but humans are more important than animals,' said Brutha. 'This is a point of view often expressed by humans,' said Om.

The jurisdiction of a good man extends to the end of the world.

I'VE NEVER BEEN VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT, said Bill Door. I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.

If you had enough money, you could hardly commit crimes at all. You just perpetrated amusing little peccadilloes.

The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people.

War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for? he said. Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe? Absol—well, okay. Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor? All right, I'll grant you that, but— Saving civilization from a horde of— It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together, said Fred Colon sharply. Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?