Quotes About Ethics

You see my point? The average person has a very average notion of goodness to which they aspire averagely. To aspire to goodness in any remarkable way would be 'undemocratic'.

Also, always encourage 'being good' over 'doing good.' Acts of goodness are the difficulty for us and should, of course, be avoided. 'Being good' is far less problematic, largely because it lacks definition and can be solely a state of mind completely unattached to reality.

For example, your man might think: I don't steal. Maybe on my taxes, everyone does that, but not in the way I heard so and so stole from his company. See? Those men for whose opinion he cares approve of embezzlement in one area, not the other. He uses them to maintain a claim on goodness while at the same time stealing.

If they ever envision Goodness as a thing that exists outside them, some real thing they've been called to participate in by their actions, well then, we're headed right back toward The Virtues.

We've spent centuries moving them away from that word virtue and especially The Virtues and that's precisely how we did it —by making it lower case.

And keep them thinking in terms of 'being good' as this is not an end so much as a means to something else —happiness, respect, self-esteem, etc… And whatever their true end is, take it away, and so goes their goodness.

One must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.

To make a vow is a greater sin than to break one.

Is it not strange that men are so keen to fight for religion and so unkeen to live according to its precepts?

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

Siempre he procurado imponerme leyes que sólo entren en vigor cuando me sea casi imposible violarlas.

Discretion is nothing other than the sense of justice with respect to the sphere of the intimate contents of life.

A single person, I need hardly say, is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Hence, if the State claims life, the individual must surrender it… All the worth which the human being possesses… he possesses only through the State.

Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.

Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights

Education is the art of making man ethical

When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.

Power and position often make a man trifle with the truth.

They introduce some new technology and no matter how much good it does for most people, there's always a crazy son of a bitch who'll find something twisted to do with it.

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.

To me it seems that liberty and virtue were made for each other. If any man wish to enslave his country, nothing is a fitter preparative than vice; and nothing leads to vice so surely as irreligion.

Where there is no religion, hypocrisy becomes good taste

We veneer civilization by doing unkind things in a kind way