Quotes About Ethics

There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism.

I won't trade humanity for patriotism.

The soldier does not wish to appear a coward, disloyal, or un-American. The situation has been so defined that he can see himself as patriotic, courageous, and manly only through compliance.

The hand that gives is among the hand that takes. Money has no fatherland, financiers are without patriotism and without decency, their sole object is gain.

Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.

I would never stay in office against the will of the people. My ethics and patriotism do not allow me to do so.

I hope to find my country in the right: however I will stand by her, right or wrong.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.

Safety is the last refuge of the scoundrel!

Public office is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

We would rather starve than sell our national honor.

In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars.

Our country ... when right, to be kept right. When wrong, to be put right.

Unfortunately, religion, like patriotism, is easy to misuse for political purposes.

Leo Tolstoy ... defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.

Patriotism is the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.

[W]e're taught that if one person kills another person, that is murder; but if a government kills a hundred thousand persons, that is patriotism.

Those who believe patriotism to be the last refuge of the scoundrel have underestimated compassion.

To preserve the life of citizens, is the greatest virtue in the father of his country.

When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform.

The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice -- and always has been.

As I said before, [patriotism] is distinct from acting to benefit the government - a distinction that's increasingly lost today.