Quotes About Ethics

The compass of compassion asks not what is good for me? but what is good? Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not how much can we take? but How much ought we leave? and how much might we give? Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral.

humans are not the measure of all things.

I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.

All genuine political theories presuppose man to be 'evil'.

humanity, bestiality.

In general, it would be a peculiar type of 'justice' to declare a majority all the better and more just the more overwhelming it is, and to maintain abstractly that ninety-eight people abusing two persons is by far not so unjust as fifty-one people mistreating forty-nine. At this point, pure mathematics becomes simple inhumanity.

Norms are valid only for normal situations.

The remarkable and, for many, certainly disquieting diagnosis [is] that all genuine political theories presuppose man to be evil.

All that can justify killing is 'an existential threat to one's own way of life. . . . To demand seriously of human beings that they kill others and be prepared to die themselves so that trade and industry may flourish for the survivors or that the purchasing power of grandchildren may grow is sinister and crazy.

"Our country, right or wrong." When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.

Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong to be put right.

My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, "My country, right or wrong." In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

Today there is a strong smell of blood in the air. Literary anti-Semitism forges the moral weapon for murder. Sturdy and honest lads will take care of the rest.

In 2009, for example, a team of scientists at MIT succeded in implanting a wireless electrode into a zebra fish. With the press of a button, the scientists could wirelessly transmit a signal to the song-producing region of the bird's brain. The bird instantly stopped singing.

The question of when life begins is answered according to the purposes for which we ask it.

A conscience is that still small voice that people won't listen to.

Ma non sa lei che cosa è il "De Officiis"?» chiese improvvisamente a Gigi, e come in un tono di rimprovero. Gigi, ora, tagliuzzava una gomma con la punta del temperino: levò il viso, atteggiandolo a profondo interesse. «Ma è la grande Etica della latinità!» proclamò Frugoni entusiasta, con voce piena, potente.

The greatest travelers have not gone beyond the limits of their own world; they have trodden the paths of their own souls, of good and evil, of morality and redemption.

non è il vestito bello che fa il signore, ma è piuttosto il vestito pulito.

Stabilire il numero delle donnine allegre è un'impresa disperata. Anzitutto la categoria si presta male a una precisa definizione perché tra i due estremi di «donna onesta» e «prostituta pubblica» esiste tutta una vasta gamma di condizione intermedie dai contorni confusi.

Likewise, however little man, in living, demands as just to himself, his duty toward justice remains infinite. The right to live cannot be paid by finite labour, only by infinite activity. Because you participate in the violence of all things, all of this violence is part of your debt to justice. All of your activity must go toward eradicating this: to give everything and demand nothing; this is the duty—where duties and rights may be, I do not know.

In conclusion, the good can be made better; the bad remains bad.

A gastronome who isn't an environmentalist is just stupid, and an environmentalist who isn't a gastronome is just sad.