Quotes About Ethics

In all unmerciful actions, the worst of men pay this compliment at least to humanity, as to endeavour to wear as much of the appearance of it, as the case will well let them.

Why does man have reason if he can only be influenced by violence?

A great gulf, however, has been opened between man's material advance and his social and moral progress, a gulf in which he may one day be lost if it is not closed or narrowed.

The Greatest evils inflicted by man over the face of the Earth are wrought not by the self-seekers, the pleasure lovers, or the merely amoral, but by the fervent devotees of ethical principles.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

A man may devote himself to death and destruction to save a nation; but no nation will devote itself to death and destruction to save mankind.

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong in hitting a woman, though I don't recommend you do it the same way that you hit a man.

Whenever you hold a fellow creature in distress, remember that he is a man.

In every good man a God doth dwell.

Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue.

The best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes.

The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false.

The school-room sends men to the Legislature, to the bench, and the executive office. The bar-room sends them to the scaffold and hell.

A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men.

In the animal world no creature born to be a dove turns into a scavenger. This happens only among men.

Heaven takes care that no man secures happiness by crime.

Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce must not be reckoned.

When men can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become humanists.

Occasionally, a man must rise above principles.

Who is the Forgotten Man? He is the clean, quiet, virtuous, domestic citizen, who pays his debts and his taxes and is never heard of out of his little circle.

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.

The wealthiest man among us is the best

There are successful scholars, public-spirited scholars, upright scholars, cautious scholars, and those who are merely petty men.

The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.