Quotes About Ethics

There is a moral sturdiness to (hardware store owner) Charley that isn't advertised or boasted about, but is obvious to all who know him and quickly discerned by those who don't. Our country has lately been afflicted with television preachers and pundits who focus on our families while neglecting theirs. How vainglorious these critics seem, how vacuous and shallow they appear when placed alongside a man of Charley's stature.

The Manchester Guardian noted: 'People do not understand this legalistic attitude to affairs of life and death.

wrote White, expressing the firm belief that 'England will best Germany because Germany is wicked, and the English, if not salt of the earth, are "good" men

why should human beings have another chance at an afterlife? They were such miserable, conniving, self-deceiving, hypocritical wretches.

It takes a certain amount of courage, he thought, to face yourself and say with candor, I'm rotten. I've done evil and I will again. It was no accident; it emanated from the true, authentic me.

We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious.

Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one.

Exactly what the powers of hell feed on: the best instincts in man.

Don't never participate in no bad scenes, he reminded himself; that was his motto in life.

Guilt—if there was any guilt—spread out and diffused itself over everybody and everything…. Perhaps at some point in time, at some spot in the world, a moment of responsibility existed.

If practicality and morality are polarized and you must choose, you must do what you think is right, rather than what you think is practical.

You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity.

Those who take lives will lose their own. Those who kill, will die. But he who gives his own life away will live again!

they won't help a hurt man up from the gutter due to the obligation it imposes.

If you or I ever really accepted the moral responsibility for what we've done in our lifetime—we'd drop dead or go mad. Living creatures weren't made to understand what they do.

Dovunque andrai, ti si richiederà di fare qualcosa di sbagliato. È la condizione fondamentale della vita essere costretti a far violenza alla propria personalità. Prima o poi, tutte le creature viventi devono farlo. È l'ombra estrema, il difetto della creazione; è la maledizione che si compie, la maledizione che si nutre della vita. In tutto l'universo.»

To save one life, Mr Tagomi had to take two. The logical, balanced mind cannot make sense of that

Am I being paid back for something I did? he asked himself. Something I don't know about or remember? But nobody pays back, he reflected. I learned that a long time ago: you're not paid back for the bad you do nor the good you do. It all comes out uneven at the end. Haven't I learned that by now, if I've learned anything?

Better a live dog than a dead prince

He wished to god he had a horse, in fact any animal. Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one. And yet from a social standpoint it had to be done, given the absence of the real article.

I have an odd paradox for you, he said. Those who take lives will lose their own. Those who kill, will die. But he who gives his own life away will live again!

Come down here, he said, and we'll rent a hotel room. Why? Something I heard today, he said hoarsely. About situations involving human men and android women.

It requires the greatest kind of wisdom, she thought, to know when to apply injustice. How can justice fall victim, even, to what is right?

That's because you're a highly moral person. I'm not. I don't judge, not even myself.