Quotes About Ethics

That debauchery was not a good thing in a married man did not even occur to him [Tsar Nicholas I], and he would have been very surprised if anyone had condemned him for it. But, even though he was convinced that he had acted as he ought, he was left with some sort of unpleasant aftertaste, and, to stifle that feeling, he began thinking about something that always soothed him: about what a great man he was.

Vronsky's life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment's hesitation about doing what he ought to do.

On the contrary one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive, that's not my fault, so I must live out my live the best I can, without hurting others.

It is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.

Why is gambling forbidden while women in costumes which evoke sensuality are not forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous!

I wrote: teaching what was for me the only truth, namely, that one should live so as to have the best for oneself and one's family.

I ragionamenti lo portavano a dubbi e gli impedivano di vedere quel che si doveva e quel che non si doveva fare. Quando invece non pensava, ma viveva, sentiva incessantemente nell'animo suo la presenza d'un giudice infallibile che decideva quale di due azioni possibili fosse migliore e quale peggiore, e, appena agiva non così come si doveva, lo sentiva immediatamente.

We expect rewards for goodness, and punishments for the bad things which we do. Often, they are not immediately

It is necessary that men, governed by their own feelings, find sensual delight in virtue.

If the good has a cause, it is no longer the good; if it has a consequence - a reward - it is also not the good. Therefore the good is outside the chain of cause and effect.

This ideal of glory and grandeur--which consists not merely in considering that nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on every crime once commits.

Se poate afla cu u?urin?? cât fier ?i ce metale se g?sesc în soare ?i în stele,dar s? sco?i la iveal? tic?lo?ia noastr? e greu,îngrozitor de greu...

What is bad? What is good? What should one love and what hate? What does one live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What power governs all?

man has retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man's primitive blessedness.

Don't steal the rolls!

Don't steal rolls.

Money, in itself, is evil. And therefore he who gives money gives evil.

If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars,

If everybody fought for nothing but his own convictions, there wouldn't be any wars,

If goodness has a cause, it is no longer goodness. If it has a consequence, a reward, it is also not goodness. Therefore, goodness is beyond the chain of cause and effect. It is exactly this that I know and that we all know. What greater miracle could there be than that?

How can one feel well when one is suffering in moral sense? Can any sensitive person find peace of mind nowadays?

Why did millions of people kill one another when it has been known since the world began that it is physically and morally bad to do so? Because it was such an inevitable necessity that in doing it men fulfilled the elemental zoological law which bees fulfill when they kill one another in autumn, and which causes male animals to destroy one another. One can give no other reply to that terrible question.

The man who is at a lower level but is moving onward toward perfection is living a more moral, a better life, is more fully carrying out Christ's teaching, than the man on a much higher level of morality who is not moving onward toward perfection.