Quotes About Ethics

Goodness is the only investment which never fails.

Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it.

The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

So we defend ourselves and our henroosts, and maintain slavery.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

What a singular fact for an angel visitant to this earth to carry back in his note-book, that men were forbidden to expose their bodies under the severest penalties!

What is human warfare but just this an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

As for doing good, that is one of the professions which are full.

Law never made men a whit more just.

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other....

A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. - from Live Without Principle

Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison . . . the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Corporations have no souls, but they can love each other.