Quotes About Ethics

One has to be aware that human beings are involved in all these cases.

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

Everyone will experience the consequences of his own acts. If his act are right, he'll get good consequences if they're not, he'll suffer for it.

For the thief and the humanitarian each have the same motive — to do what he believes will make him feel good. In fact, we can't avoid a very significant conclusion: Everyone is selfish.

If you give a man a gift because you hope he will award a particular contract to you, you are obviously demonstrating a lack of confidence in your ability to make your normal services profitable to him. And if you're doing it because your competitors are, then you're suggesting that the prospect really isn't a very ideal customer.

One person devotes his life to helping the poor. Another one lies and steals. Still another person tries to create better products and services for which he hopes to be paid handsomely. One woman devotes herself to her husband and children. Another seeks a career as a singer. In every case, the basic motivation has been the same. Each person is doing what he believes will bring him happiness. What varies between them is the means each has chosen to gain his happiness.

Morality can provide at most only a severely limited and insufficient answer to the question of how a person should live.

The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

We may seek to distance ourselves from bullshit, but we are more likely to turn away from it with an impatient or irritated shrug than with the sense of violation or outrage that lies often inspire. The problem of understanding why our attitude towards bullshit is generally more benign than our attitude toward lying is an important one...

It is very hard to be a hypocrite if you aren't trained for it.

So they think wrong. Am I to blame because the world is full of fatheads? You know well enough that birth control has nothing to do with killing babies. In fact it saves them. Which is the bigger crime—letting kids die of disease and starvation or seeing that the unwanted ones don't get born in the first place?

Our people have only the one chance. Our good deeds must be done on this earth in this life. And since there is no one to share the burden with them or to intercede for them they must do it on their own.

It is unthinkable that a rich and enlightened society should permit its unfortunate members to starve in the midst of plenty; but once the justifications are admitted the difficulties still stand undiminished.

I had already taken a step toward their house, but then Father said, 'No, not there. They're hiding Jews.'" Christ!" exclaimed Anton, slapping his forehead.

Ik [ben] voorstander van abortus tot het veertigste levensjaar, en van euthanasie vanaf het veertigste.

We weten dat hij nooit een concentratiekamp, laat staan een vernietigingskamp heeft bezocht. Dat liet hij over aan Himmler, de baas van de SS en de politie. Laat ik aannemen, dat hij op een dag besloot in Auschwitz te gaan kijken naar de dagelijkse vergassing van duizenden mannen, vrouwen en kinderen, die hij had bevolen. Hoe had hij op die aanblik gereageerd? Maar daarvoor moet ik zijn karakter veranderen, want dat is nu juist wat hij nooit gedaan heeft, en dan had ik hem weer niet begrepen.

Why should "Honor thy father and thy mother" be a commandment, and "Honor thy child" not?

If you believe we shouldn't have done it, then you also believe that, in the light of history, the human race shouldn't have existed. Because then all the love and happiness and goodness in this world can't outweigh the life of a single child.

We're all animals, you know? We do what we think is right.

There is no self that exists independent of the forces that created it, and thus you cannot be held personally, or perhaps I should say morally, accountable for what you did or didn't do.

You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook.

Since childhood at my mother's knee, I have believed in honor, ethics and right living as its own reward. I find a very small minority who agree with me on that premise.

Politics sure is the ruination of many a good man.

Politics should make a thief, a roué, and a pessimist of anyone but I don't believe I am any of them...