Quotes About Ethics

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

Those who said they would do so only in return for a greased palm, got a little money.

Religion makes good people better and bad people worse.

Business must be run at a profit…, else it will die. But when any one attempts to run a business solely for profit and thinks not at all of the service to the community, then also the business must die, for it no longer has a reason for existence.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

John D Rockefeller read his Bible religiously, but kept his ledger in a different drawer.

Punishment is the responsibility of higher forces in the universe

Remember, the only way to bring about the greater good, is to be the greater good.

Right living is the best way to eliminate suffering

A crime is born in the gap between the morality of society and that of the individual.

WOLLNER: I killed them because they were evil people. BAUSEN: Evil? WOLLNER: Evil people. BAUSEN: Was that the only reason? WOLLNER: It's reason enough.

A revolutionary must have solid foundation of revolutionary morality in order to fulfill his glorious revolutionary task.

We tarnish the luster of our most beautiful actions when we applaud them ourselves.

The purpose behind all doctrine is to secure moral action.

Once we learn that different economic theories say different things partly because they are based on different ethical and political values, we will have the confidence to discuss economics for what it really is - a political argument - and not a 'science' in which there is clear right and wrong.

All prejudice presents itself as piety, propriety.

Well, I myself, while sometimes unkempt by nights of drunkenness and debauchery, am quite convinced a man's good character is marked by his impeccable attire.

Our judgments always have behind them a quality of righteousness.

What you have stolen can never be yours.

Vont er þeirra ránglæti, verra þeirra réttlæti.

I went to my son's graduation this weekend, and I heard a great quote I've never heard before from Albert Einstein. It was that the greatest danger to the world is not the bad people but it's the good people who don't speak out.