Quotes About Ethics

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.

Every man has his moral backside too, which he doesn't expose unnecessarily but keeps covered as long as possible by the trousers of decorum.

In statesmanship get formalities right, never mind about the moralities.

Moral indignation is, in most cases, 2% moral, 48% indignation and 50% envy.

Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture - and very much to our credit.

The only people who should really sin are the people who can sin with a grin.

The so-called new morality has too often the old immorality condoned.

To act without rapacity, to use knowledge with wisdom, to respect interdependence, to operate without hubris and greed are not simply moral imperatives. They are an accurate scientific description of the means of survival.

If some great power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being some sort of clock and wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I should close instantly with the offer.

We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and the other which we practice but seldom preach.

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.

It is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine.

He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars: general good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer. For art and science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars.

Most people sell their souls and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

Below the navel there is neither religion nor truth.

What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

If your morals make you dreary, depend on it they are wrong.

Morality is not respectability.

Moral indignation - jealousy with a halo.

Dr. Johnson's morality was as English an article as a beefsteak.

To give a man full knowledge of true morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.

We talk on principle, but we act on interest.

The virtues and the vices are all put in motion by interest.