Quotes About Ethics

There can be no good character in civil government if there is none in the people. You cannot make a good omelet with bad eggs.

We may disagree with the morality of a law, but we cannot deny the moral concern of a law.

because men that are free,well born,well bred,and conversant in honest companies have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions,and withdraws them from vice which is called honor

You'd be surprised what people will do for money that they wouldn't do for love. Myrnin.

Yeah, and by the way? How much does it suck that I'm an adult if I kill somebody, and not if I want a beer?

I thought that you had stood up for the free will & rights of humans in this town." "Depends on the human," Claire said. "As far as I know, Hitler had a heartbeat, and I wouldn't vote him to be in charge.

When you steal a book, you steal from the world , the Library propaganda said

So don't preach at us like you're some kind of saint. You're just another sinner.

Hell, I can't hit a girl. Here, Claire. You hit her.

God is forgiving or we would not still be walking this world. But to be moral is not to need his divine forgiveness, I think.

It's the hardest lesson for someone who's been taught guns are the answer . . . that they're only the answer to a pure, simple, direct set of problems: killing someone. I

Hell, Shane spit in disgust. I can't hit a girl. Here, Claire. You hit her He tossed her the bat.

I ended your experiment. Because you're not a scientist. You're a monster. I'm not leaving any of them at your mercy.

You weren't picky about who got hurt. Still aren't. So don't preach at us like you're some kind of saint. You're just another sinner.

Faith. Faith in what? He'd believed in the Library, the ideal of it, anyway. He believed that it was doing good, and more, that it wanted to do good. But now he'd seen the dirty underside, and he couldn't hold on to his faith much longer.

But the guilt is nebulous, not actual, and I'm not on the run from the law. Just from the lawless.

It's almost like rising to the highest levels of power comes with a side order of sociopathy—who could have seen that coming?

The internet enables and organizes hate very effectively; it lets people believe they're righteous warriors for justice when in reality they're just clicking keys.

It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged.

By acquiescing in an act that causes such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished?

the responsibility of science, and the limits of technological progress.

Incidents like the eastern Illinois spraying raise a question that is not 9nly scientific but moral. The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.

It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons

The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man.