Quotes About Ethics

Worry about right and wrong wasn't a concept he embraced. Right and wrong were ephemerals; they changed from every angle, from hour to hour, depending on which side of any of a thousand borders a soldier was born.

Though she knew she was not personally responsible for the collective sins of the world, she couldn't shake a creeping shame for enslaving Africans, decimating the American Indian tribes, annihilating the passenger pigeon, building strip malls on California's beaches and leaving behind unsightly junk on the face of the moon. Clintus

Criminals were a lazy bunch. If they weren't, they'd get their MBAs and rob with impunity.

One cannot be kind in any meaningful way over any length of time without also being good.

Half a thou too small," he said. "The difference between Right and Wrong. Half a thou bigger, and it'ld be Right. As it is, it's Wrong, and you can't cheat about it." He smiled again. "Too bad when God gives you the mind of an Inspector, isn't it?

Do to others what you would have them do to you.

The source of the famous Golden Rule. Many famous lines were variations on this theme.

The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.

The Romans say, 'You must', the Protestant Nonconformists say, 'You must not', the Catholic Church of England says, 'You may.' [regarding the practice of confession; Overture to Death, chapter 17]

It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.

There is no Heaven. How can there be? Think about it. For starters, if all the good people there have ever been are already there, how big would it have to be? Second, what a social nightmare. It'd be like all the good characters in all the books in the ultimate library of the world left their books, stepped out of their stories and were told just mingle.

nadie tiene derecho a sonreír en un mundo podrido como éste salvo que tenga pacto con el Diablo

but look," he said, a little desperately. "What would the world be like if everyone settled things like this?" Frieda stood up. "What is the world like?" she said.

It is not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles.

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.

They looked like good people, but deep down they were pieces of shit. They often found they way into politics, and they talked about God, family values and country. They were the new cavaliers of the Catholic culture.

What you call looking like an idiot are splashes of mediatic splendor that give shine to your personality and make you more human, more likable. If ethical and aesthetic principles no longer exist, looking like an idiot disappears as a consequence.

Quelle che tu chiami figure di merda sono sprazzi di splendore mediatico che danno lustro al personaggio e che ti rendono più umano e simpatico. Se non esistono più regole etiche ed estetiche le figure di merda decadono di conseguenza.

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained