Quotes About Ethics

When the Way prevails in the world, then be seen. When it does not, then hide.

If you yourself are correct, even without the issuing of orders, things will get done; if you yourself are incorrect, although orders are issued, they will not be obeyed

15.15 The Master said, "To demand much from oneself personally, and not overmuch from others, will keep ill will at a distance.

Practicing archery is like practicing to be a Gentleman. When you miss the bulls-eye, you look for the error in yourself.

7.25 The Master taught under four categories: culture (wen ), proper conduct (xing ), doing one's utmost (zhong ), and making good on one's word (xin ).

The junzi's stance towards the world is this: there is nothing he insists on, nothing he refuses, he simply aligns himself beside right.

The gentleman understands what is moral. The small man understands what is profitable.

The philosopher Zeng said, I daily examine myself on three points: whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful; whether, in intercourse with friends, I may have been not sincere; whether I may have not mastered and practiced the instructions of my teacher.

It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it.

I don't know what sort of world she will live in and I have no fixed opinions concerning how she should live in it. I only know that if she does not come to value what is true above what is useful, it will make little difference whether she lives at all.

When the shooting starts would you rather be armed or legal?

We wouldnt ever eat anybody, would we? No. Of course not. Even if we were starving? We're starving now. You said we werent. I said we werent dying. I didnt say we werent starving. But we wouldnt. No. We wouldnt. No matter what. No. No matter what. Because we're the good guys. Yes. And we're carrying the fire. And we're carrying the fire. Yes. Okay.

If one were to be a person of value that value could not be a condition subject to hazards of fortune. It had to be a quality that could not change. No matter what.

Even a nonbeliever might find it useful to model himself after God. Very useful, in fact.

How can you believe in heaven if you don't believe in hell?

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak.

It takes very little to govern good people.

All my life, he said, I been witness to people showin up where they was supposed to be at various times after they'd said they'd be there. I never heard one yet that didnt have a reason for it. Yessir. But there aint but one reason. Yessir. You know what it is? No sir. It's that their word's no good. That's the only reason there ever was or ever will be.

Without malefactors the world of the righteous is robbed of all meaning.

To win a war or a revolution does not validate the cause.

The men poured gasoline on them and burned them alive, having no remedy for evil but only for the image of it as they conceived it to be.

Don't flang him off the bluff, boys. Tain't christian. Let's go then. Hump up there, stranger, and let's go get hung.

Pomisli da možda u istoriji sveta ?ak i ima više kazni nego zlo?ina, ali ne bi mu to uteha.

All my life, he said, I been witness to people showin up where they was supposed to be at various times after they'd said they'd be there. I never heard one yet that didnt have a reason for it. Yessir. But there aint but one reason. Yessir. You know what it is? No sir. It's that their word's no good. That's the only reason there ever was or ever will be. Yessir.