Quotes About Ethics

Friendship with a man is friendship with his virtue.

The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil.

Virtue consisted in avoiding scandal and venereal disease.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

Elegance is inferior to virtue.

All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance.

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.

Silver and gold are not the only coin; virtue too passes current all over the world.

Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime.

What most men call their conscience is imaginary virtue switching left or right according to self-interest.

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.

Morals are built on religious faith. Virtue is built on morality and influences a culture.

Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.

Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

A ruler makes use of the majority and neglects the minority, and so he does not devote himself to virtue but to law.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.