Quotes About Ethics

History was full of the bones of good men who'd followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.

NAUGHTY AND NICE? said Death. BUT IT'S EASY TO BE NICE IF YOU'RE RICH. IS THIS FAIR? Albert wanted to argue. He wanted to say, Really? In that case, how come so many of the rich buggers is bastards? And being poor don't mean being naughty, neither.

He sighed. It had come to this. He was a responsible authority, and people could use terms like core values at him with impunity.

If you were going to be successful in the world of crime, you needed a reputation for honesty.

But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats.

It was nice to think that mankind made a distinction between blowing their planet to bits by accident and doing it by design.

Assassins did have a certain code, after all. It was dishonorable to kill someone if you weren't being paid.

They were indeed what was known as 'old money', which meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds which had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that: a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of.

The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.

Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.

I'm not a natural killer ! See this? See what it says? I'm supposed to keep the peace, I am! If I kill people to do it, I'm reading the wrong manual!

Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It's lying, only for a better class of people.

Everybody does it! Quirke burst out. It's perks ! Everybody? said Vimes. He looked around at the squad. Anyone else here take bribes? His glare ran from face to face, causing most of the squad to do an immediate impression of the Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronized Observation Team.

He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew…then it was too high.

We are as gods to beasts of the field. We order the time of their birth and the time of their death. Between times, we have a duty.

Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned.

Corporal Nobbs," he rasped, "why are you kicking people when they're down?" "Safest way, sir," said Nobby. Nobby had long ago been told about fighting fair and not striking a fallen opponent, and had then given some creative thought to how these rules applied to someone four feet tall with the muscle tone of an elastic band.

It was written in some holy book, apparently, so that made it okay, and probably compulsory.

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

There will be justice, said Brutha. If there is no justice, there is nothing.

They stole from rich merchants and temples and kings. They didn't steal from poor people; this was not because there was anything virtuous about poor people, it was simply because poor people had no money.

Take it from me, whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking Ethics, you can bet your sandals it's all because dozens of other poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place.

It was a little like stealing. It was exactly like stealing. It was, in fact, stealing. But there was no law against it because no one knew the crime existed, so is it really stealing if what's stolen isn't missed? And is it stealing if you're stealing from thieves? Anyway, all property is theft, except mine.

You were the kind of kid who couldn't see the difference between throwing rocks at a cat and setting it on fire.