Quotes About Ethics

What criterion ought one to adopt to judge one's fellows? After all, there was not a single person he knew who might not, in certain circumstances, prove capable of a shameful action.

It was not evil that gave her the idea of pleasure, that seemed to her attractive; it was pleasure, rather, that seemed evil. And as, every time that she indulged in it, pleasure came to her attended by evil thoughts such as, ordinarily, had no place in her virtuous mind, she came at length to see in pleasure itself something diabolical, to identify it with Evil.

He beguiled me almost by surprise into doing wrong, then he got me accustomed to having bad thoughts which I had no will to resist—willpower being the only force capable of driving them back to the infernal darkness from which they emerged.

If fruitful love, meant to perpetuate the race, noble as a familial, social, human duty, is superior to purely sensual love, then there is no hierarchy of sterile loves, and such a love is no less moral - or, rather, it is no more immoral for a woman to find pleasure with another woman than with a person of the opposite sex.

Een warme gezindheid jegens anderen overdrijft het goede even graag, als de kwaadaardigheid er plezier in heeft iemand omlaag te halen.

We live Law to ourselves. Our reason is our Law.

Most men admire Virtue who follow not her lore.

Mortals that would follow me, Love virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or if virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her.

I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public, of peace and war.

For indeed none can love freedom heartily, but good men: the rest love not freedom, but license: which never hath more scope, or more indulgence than under tyrants.

He who kills a person kills a reasonable creature, but he who kills a good book destroys reason itself

We have to stop marketing to people the way we hate to be marketed to.

Luther's principles for the internal, and Machiavelli's practice for the external, direction of the State were to be the ideal for many generations.

Morality divorced from the doctrines of the gospel is not that holiness which the gospel requires.

If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.

We cannot bring ourselves to bite the hand of the master who feeds us.

A system based on corrupting public figures does not take kindly to public figures who refuse to be corrupted

The modern slave trader assures himself (or herself) that the desperate people are better off earning one dollar a day than no dollars at all, and that they are receiving the opportunity to become integrated into the larger world community.

Cuando se recompensa la codicia humana, ésta se convierte en un poderoso inductor de corrupción.

Joined by retired Democratic senator George Mitchell and former Senate aide Charlie Scheeler, DLA Piper sought to protect the avaricious interests of its clients, including one of the retailers identified with the factory collapse (Gap), at the expense of the people and economy of Bangladesh.1

Isn't there a risk, you wonder, of indigenous leaders being corrupted by the big corporations? No doubt. But aren't we already living with the problem of government officials, politicians, civil servants, political parties and mayors being corrupted by these companies or – to put it in gentler terms – agreeing to act in a compliant manner? They

This reality of the Honour of the Crown is an important Aboriginal contribution to justice for all Canadians. In fact, I believe that non-Aboriginals could use it in many government-related cases. Chief Delbert Guerin, who led this long and difficult fight, died in May 2014. He was one of the great figures of contemporary Canada. By formally reintroducing ethics into the core of public administration, he changed the way we must think of ourselves. We owe him a great deal.

Such sudden respectability for undisciplined self-interest is one of the most surprising developments of the last three decades. It seems to indicate just how confused our society has become.

The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.