Quotes About Ethics

A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.

Offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

The press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint.

When a man has cast his longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't

Perhaps we shouldn't be displeased with the 'environmental ethics' we have or the 'business ethics' or the 'political ethics' or any of the myriad of other codes of conduct suggested by our actions. After all, we've created them. We've created the stories that allow them to exist and flourish. They didn't come out of nowhere. They didn't arrive from another planet.

This is a Christian world, you know. We only kill things that are useful or things we don't like.

Integrity reveals beauty.

As for procreation, no one in his right mind would say that it is the only activity devoid of a praiseworthy incentive. Those who reproduce, then, should not feel unfairly culled as the worst conspirators against the human race. Every one of us is culpable in keeping the conspiracy alive, which is all right with most people.

The company that employed me strived only to serve up the cheapest fare that the customer would tolerate, churn it out as fast as possible, and charge as much as they could get away with. If it were possible to do so, the company would sell what all businesses of its kind dream about selling, creating that which all of our efforts were tacitly supposed to achieve: the ultimate product -- Nothing. And for this product they would command the ultimate price -- Everything.

Stringently considered, then, our only natural birthright is a right to die.

The advance of our technology is coincidental with the loss of our appetite for ethical questions that ought to attend the implications of these new powers. . . In the name of diversity, any idea is regarded as worthy as any other; any nonsense is entitled to a forum, a full hearing, and equal time.

He (and anyone else who survived) learned to be as unscrupulous as the heroes in the pulp adventure magazines he'd read as a boy--sometimes, as unscrupulous as the villains.

No society could survive—and surely no society could be decent—if everybody in it were able to communicate everything. —Daniel J. Boorstin

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

To some extent the history of plagiarism is a history of notebooks.

In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple manners prevailed, the increase of the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto known.

Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.

A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.

all sentient beings capable of suffering should constitute a solidarity against suffering. Out of this solidarity, we should refrain from doing anything that could increase the overall amount of suffering and confusion in the universe.

What is got over the Devil's back (that's by knavery), is spent under the belly (that's by lechery).

Oh,Wert not gold and women, there would be no damnation