Quotes About Ethics

My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.

There is in all animals a sense of duty that man condescends to call instinct.

I should NOT be trading on the blood of my men.

What exists outside is a man's concern; let no woman give advice; and do no mischief within doors.

There is a radical dualism between the empirical nature of man and its moral nature.

God is not necessary to create culpability, or to punish. Our fellow men are enough for that, helped by ourselves.

Nothing causes more consternation in a group of hypocrits than one honest man.

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

You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation.

So upright Quakers please both man and God.

Modesty and unselfishness - these are the virtues which men praise - and pass by.

A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.

Men are more accountable for their motives, than for anything else; and primarily, morality consists in the motives, that is in the affections.

There is no honest man! not one, that can resist the attraction of gold!

Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.

Some men turn every quality or art into a means of making money; this they conceive to be the end, and to the promotion of the end all things must contribute.

Men in general desire the good and not merely what their fathers had.

From forty to fifty a man is at heart either a stoic or a satyr.

Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.

There is a bizarre notion according to which it is claimed that because men are corrupt, it is necessary to give certain of them all the more power... on the contrary, they must be given less power.

An honest Man will receive neither Money nor Praise that is not his due.

A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenceless!

In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy.

It's not what a man does, it's what a man is that counts!