Quotes About Ethics

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth...In fact freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.

He places placidity above all                And refuses to prettify weapons;        If one prettifies weapons,                This is to delight in the killing of other..

Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.

Morality is truth in full bloom.

But secondly you say 'society must exact vengeance, and society must punish'. Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.

There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war.

Are you afraid of the good you might do?

The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

Die, very good, but do not make others die. Suicides like the one which is about to take place here are sublime, but suicide is restricted, and does not allow of extension; and so soon as it affects your neighbors, suicide becomes murder.

There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the stars, from a great distance.

Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes.

The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does not yet permeate it.

Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.

To be a saint is the exception; to be a just person is the rule. Err, stumble, commit sin, but be one of the just.

He who is not master of his own thoughts is not accountable for his own deeds.

To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. To live without sin is the dream of an angel. Everything terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation.

When a man does wrong, he should do all the wrong he can; it is madness to stop half-way in crime!

There are no bad herbs or bad men; there are only bad cultivators.

Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls.

This conflict between right and fact has endured since the origins of society. To bring the duel to an end, to consolidate the pure ideal with the human reality, to make the right peacefully interpenetrate the fact, and the fact the right, this is the work of the wise.

Knowledge is a weight added to conscience.

Well, listen a moment, Monsieur Mayor; I have often been severe in my life towards others. It was just. I did right. Now if I were not severe towards myself, all I have justly done would become injustice. Should I spare myself more than others? No. What! if I should be prompt only to punish others and not myself, I should be a wretched indeed! - Javert to M. Madeleine

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

Right is just and true.