Quotes About Ethics

Every evildoer began by despising the Gods; and one not previously corrupt, taking to this contempt, even though in other respects not wholly bad, becomes an evildoer by the very fact.

I used to use business to make money. But I've learned that business is a tool. You can use it to support what you believe in.

I suspected later that I might actually saved lives by killing some of them.

Compassion and brutality can coexist in the same individual and in the same moment...

It is man who kills, man who creates or suffers injustice; it is no longer man who, having lost all restraint, shares his bed with a corpse. Whoever waits for his neighbor to die in order to take his piece of bread is, albeit guiltless, further from the model of thinking man than the most primitive pigmy or the most vicious sadist.

It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end.

Suicide is an act of man and not of the animal.

But here in the Lager there are no criminals nor madmen; no criminals because there is no moral law to contravene, no madmen because we are wholly devoid of free will, as our every action is, in time and place, the only conceivable one.

no hay vanidad mayor que esforzarse en tragarse enteros los sistemas morales elaborados por los demás, bajo otros cielos.

He fights for his life but still remains everybody's friend. He knows whom to corrupt, whom to avoid, whose compassion to arouse, whom to resist.

Those who saw the famous film The Bridge on the River Kwai will remember the absurd zeal with which the English officer, prisoner of the Japanese, strives to build an audacious wooden bridge for them and is shocked when he realizes that the English sappers have mined it. So you see, love for a job well done is a deeply ambiguous virtue.

otro, a costa de otro; podría haber suplantado a alguien, es decir, en realidad matado a alguien. Los «salvados» de Auschwitz no eran los mejores, los predestinados al bien, los portadores de un mensaje; cuanto yo había visto y vivido me demostraba precisamente lo contrario.

How can one hit a man without anger?

Chi per mestiere compra o vende si riconosce facilmente: ha l'occhio vigile e il volto teso, teme la frode o la medita, e sta in guardia come un gatto all'imbrunire. È un mestiere che tende a distruggere l'anima immortale; ci sono stati filosofi cortigiani, filosofi pulitori di lenti, perfino filosofi ingegneri e strateghi, ma nessun filosofo, che io sappia, era grossista o bottegaio.

Today is truly the Golden Age: gold buys hornor, gold procures love

Dostojewski schrieb einmal: Ist Gott erst tot, ist alles erlaubt. Das mag zutreffen. Aber, wie die Geschichte lehrt, gilt auch der Satz: mit Berufung auf Gott hat man sich schon alles erlaubt.

It signifies that the great judge of the dead looks down on men to see that justice is done and that truth prevails. So I commend you to the good Osiris;

Many believers use truth as a license to righteously diminish others' reputations.

One might sooner wash shit from shit than cleanse a soul so wicked!

Suffer not a whore to live, for she maketh a pit of her womb.

That's the horrible fact of sinners. We're indistinguishable from the righteous.

Some starve. Some eat. Disparity is simply the order of things. It's only when fat men make sauce out of other's starvation that it becomes a sin.

After all, spies were little different from whores. Sorcerers less so.

The ability to pass judgment without work or research has got to be the coolest consumer good since the invention of philosophy.