Quotes About Ethics

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

The philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.

Let parents then bequeath to their children not riches but the spirit of reverence.

He feels particularly ashamed if ever he is seen by his lovers to be invovled in something dishonourable.

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

He could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse

let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.

it's better in fact to be guilty of manslaughter than of fraud about what is fair and just.

The man deserved his fate, deny it who can; yes, but the fate did not deserve the man.

If it were necessary either to do wrong or to suffer it, I should choose to suffer rather than do it.

And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.

Pleasure is the bait of sin

On the virtuous man] He combines the highest, lowest and middle chords in complete harmony within himself.

Other people are likely not to be aware that those who pursue philosophy aright study nothing but dying and being dead. Now if this is true, it would be absurd to be eager for nothing but this all their lives, and then to be troubled when that came for which they had all along been eagerly practicing.

the most important thing is not life, but the good life.

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

virtue does not spring from riches, but riches and all other human blessings, both private and public, from virtue.

Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race. (Republic 473c-d)

Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.

States will never be happy until rulers become philosophers or philosophers become rulers.

The worst type of man behaves as badly in his waking life as some men do in their dreams.

The evil never attains to any real friendship, either with good or evil.

And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice?