Quotes About Ethics

Even in killing men, observe the rules of propriety.

Possessed of courage but devoid of morality, a superior man will make trouble while a small man will be a brigand.

Sincerity is that whereby self-completion is effected, and its way is that by which man must direct himself.

The man of upright life is obeyed before he speaks.

If a superior man abandon virtue, how can he fulfil the requirements of that name?

When a man resists sin on human motive only, he will not hold out long.

Ability in man is an apt good, if it be applied to good ends.

Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, "Those things which they will put in practice when they become men.

Too great a sense of identity makes a man feel he can do no wrong. And too little does the same.

Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man.

Evil succeeds when good men do nothing

No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.

There is in man a conscience which outlives the sensations the sensations, resolutions, and emotions of the hour, and rises above them all.

This is the essential evil of vice: it debases a man.

Whatever touches the nerves of motive, whatever shifts man's moral position, is mightier than steam, or calorie, or lightening.

The only man who makes money following the races is one who does it with a broom and shovel.

Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world.

To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to succeed among men. To accomplish this less pure paths must be followed.

When good men die their goodness does not perish.

I call God to witness that as a private person I have done nothing unbeseeming an honest man, nor, as I bear the place of a public man, have I done anything unworthy of my place.

We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.

A man with a machine may murder or enslave millions, whereas it used to take at least thousands to murder millions. And the man behind the machine has nothing on his conscience.