Quotes About Ethics

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.

Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.

No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition.

The awful thing is that if i can forget they're people, it will be no different at all

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about.

Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands.

The morality of art is in its very beauty.

Out of the dragon's claws and into the fire, there's a moment in every man's life when he must decide what is wrong and what is right.

The best of humanity is philosophy.

You shouldn't run around killing people or eating meat. That's not what we mean by tantra. There's no need to break the rules.

The great critic … must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.

Good and evil lay side by side.

The Arab who built himself a hut with marbles from the temple of Palmyra is more philosophical than all the curators of the museums of London, Paris, and Munich.

Philosophy is fundamentally about how you come to terms with living your life and trying to do it in a wise manner, and, for me, that means decently and compassionately and courageously and so forth.

With no bottom line, it's hard to know wrong from right. But I ain't ever satisfied.

democracy is dying. We are ruled by faceless bureaucrats and lecherous puritans. ... You think about it. 'All right for me but not for you' is their philosophy.

One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.

Philosophy is an act of living.

That's a central part of philosophy, of ethics. What do I owe to strangers? What do I owe to my family? What is it to live a good life? Those are questions which we face as individuals.

It's no use trying to talk philosophy to our politicians. And I'm not a moral or political philosopher. I'm not interested in that.

For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.

There is neither vice nor virtue, there are only circumstances.