Quotes About Ethics

The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.

As free persons, citizens recognize one another as having the moral power to have a conception of the good. This means that they do not view themselves as inevitably tied to the pursuit of the particular conception of the good and its final ends which they espouse at any given time.

The refusal to take part in all war under any conditions is an unworldly view bound to remain a sectarian doctrine. It no more challenges the state's authority than the celibacy of priests challenges the sanctity of marriage.

The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. —John Ray (1670)

There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.

Taste is not only a part and index of morality, it is the only morality. The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is What do you like? Tell me what you like, I'll tell you what you are.

Great men do not play stage tricks with the doctrines of life and death: only little men do that.

Reading and writing are not education if they do not help people to be kind to all creatures

Of all the mean and wicked things a landlord can do, shutting up his footpath is the nastiest.

It being the privilege of the fishes, as it is of rats and wolves, to live by the laws of demand and supply; but the distinction of humanity, to live by those of right.

What one person has, another cannot have; and that every atom of substance, of whatever kind, used or consumed, is so much human life spent, which, if it issue in the saving present life, or gaining more, is well spent, but if not, is either so much life prevented or so much slain.

You're saying the media is dangerous, immoral, and antidemocratic?" "Well . . . yes," Henderson said. "They don't recognize it in themselves, but they're basically criminals. In the classic sense of that word.

Felt the dark finger of hypocrisy stroking his soul.

You're saying the media is dangerous, immoral, and antidemocratic?

Cox knew the guys she was living with were criminals, but really it was more like the redistribution of wealth from Beverly Hills to Long Beach, almost like being a Democrat, so it was hard to see too much wrong with it. And nobody ever died.

He was also virulently pro-life, and Weather was strongly pro-choice.

Don't get your honey where you get your money

You didn't need it, because you're basically a painter, not a thief. But I'm basically a thief. That's what I do.

Nothing I've ever done is as brutal as what corporate execs do all the time," Lucas said. "I've never fired anybody. Never taken a perfectly innocent hardworking guy and screwed up his life and his family and his kids and his dog, because somebody needed to put an extra penny on the fuckin' dividend." "Communist," she said. •

A cop and schoolteacher bar. The teachers drink like fish. The cops hit on the schoolteachers. One big happy family.

Motherfucker who'd lock a live dog down in the basement," Zimmer said. "I don't think Glen would do that if he decided to kill himself. He'd at least let the dog outside. If Glen was murdered . . . Well, I can understand shooting somebody, but why would you do that to a dog?