Quotes About Ethics

I need not look in the mirror or at the faces of my fellow men to find a likeness to God. I need only look at their selves and inside my own to realize we would not be killers if God Himself was not one, too.

Innocence and guilt. These are cosmic issues. We're all innocent on one level and guilty on another. Isn't that what Original Sin is all about?

Politics is always personal, my dear, she said. That's what makes it deadly.

They believe in a universe of divine justice where the human race is guilty of sin, but they also believe in a secular justice where human beings are presumed innocent. You can't have both.

He winced. I had hit him where it hurt, in the solar plexus of his conscience, where everyone who was an idealist was vulnerable. Disarming an idealist was easy. One only needed to ask why the idealist was not on the front line of the particular battle he had chosen. The question was one of commitment.

The problem is that those who insist on their innocence believe anything they do is just.

Although he could have shot me or turned us back, he did what I gambled every honorable man forced to take a bribe would do. He let us all pass, holding up his end of the bargain as the last fig leaf of his dignity. I averted my eyes from his humiliation.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That sounds good, but things are never that simple. The problem, you see, is how to know what we want to have done to us.

It is always better to admire the best among our foes rather than the worst among our friends. Wouldn't you agree, Commandant?

I, for one, am a person who believes that the world would be a better place if the word "murder" made us mumble as much as the word "masturbation.

The problem is that those who insist on their innocence believe anything they do is just. At least we who believe in our own guilt know what dark things we can do.

We would all be in Hell if convicted of our thoughts. Have

Our proper mode in situations where demand was high and supply was low was to elbow, jostle, crowd, and hustle, and, if all that failed, to bribe, flatter, exaggerate, and lie.

He winced. I had hit him where it hurt, in the solar plexus of his conscience, where everyone who was an idealist was vulnerable. Disarming an idealist was easy. One only needed to ask why the idealist was not on the front line of the particular battle he had chosen.

But the only thing harder than knowing the right thing to do, I went on, is to actually do the right thing.

Crianças precisam de orientação e roteiros morais, beneficiando-se imensamente com o exemplo de adultos que falam a verdade e agem com força moral.

The annual budget is a much better reflection of a country's morality than its constitution. You put more money into repression, police, military... and so little to taking care of human troubles

appearances can be deceptive and the dividing line between good and bad is very thin indeed.

A borrower may not lend the thing he borrowed.

A devil is the one who knows what is right but will not do it.

A person who has not done any good in his life dies like a beast.

Borrowing money from a bank is sometimes like borrowing money from your children.

Don't look at the shape -- look at the character.

Get the money honestly if you can, if not, any idea will do.