Quotes About Ethics

If principle is good for anything, it is worth living up to.

There is no other solution to a man's problems but the day's honest work, the day's honest decisions, the day's generous utterance, and the day's good deed.

Life is the acceptance of responsibilities or their evasion; it is a business of meeting obligations or avoiding them. To every man the choice is continually being offered, and by the manner of his choosing you may fairly measure him.

Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork?

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

The public have neither shame nor gratitude.

Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea.

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?

The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I was a grave digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

Your luck is how you treat people.

Reform must come from within, not from without. You cannot legislate for virtue.

The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

All reform except a moral one will prove unavailing.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

What does reason demand of a man? A very easy thing-to live in accord with his own nature.

I will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.

Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more.

Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants, lives so as to give a meaning and a value to his own life.

Sir, I would rather be right than be President.

He will hew to the line of right, let the chips fly where they may.

Two wrongs can never make a right.