Quotes About Ethics

until we are willing and able to make the connections between what we are eating and what was required to get it on our plate, and how it affects us to buy, serve, and eat it, we will be unable to make the connections that will allow us to live wisely and harmoniously on this earth.When we cannot make connections, we cannot understand, and we are less free, less intelligent, less loving, and less happy.

Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God . . . there is something so dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power." —Cardinal John Henry Newman

As individuals and as a culture, our ability to heal, transform, and evolve beyond this old defiling mentality is tied to our food choices more than to anything else. To meditate for world peace, to pray for a better world, and to work for social justice and environmental protection while continuing to purchase the flesh, milk, and eggs of horribly abused animals exposes a disconnect that is so fundamental that it renders our efforts absurd, hypocritical, and doomed to certain failure.

By denying the intelligence in animals, ignoring their extensive abilities to feel and to live as subjects in their own ways in the natural world, we have made our culture and ourselves less intelligent.

Al die beurzen, prijzen en stipendia,' zei hij, 'ben je werkelijk zo naïef te denken dat die bij begaafde studenten terechtkomen? Trouwens, wat is een begaafde student? Een begaafde kontenlikker, als je het mij vraagt.

To live in idleness, even if you have the means, is not only injurious to yourself, but a species of fraud upon the community, and the children—if

The talent of a meat-packer, the morals of a moneychanger and the manners of an undertaker.

Tinhorn politicians.

He writes of the Garman ethics that "there is a standard of righteousness that might does not make right, that the end does not justify the means, and that expediency as a working principle is bound to fail. The only hope of perfecting human relationships is in accordance with the law of service under which men are not so solicitous about what they shall get as they are about what they shall give.

Deeds, not words, are the demonstration and test of character.

When the destinies of the world are at stake, there comes a point at which private esteem and admiration must give way to the sense of public duty.

If honor be your clothing, the suit will last a lifetime; but if clothing be your honor, it will soon be worn threadbare.

To be virtuous, then, is to live as we were designed to live; it is to live, as Zeno put it, in accordance with nature.18 The Stoics would add that if we do this, we will have a good life.

Lawrence C. Becker puts it, "Stoic ethics is a species of eudaimonism. Its central, organizing concern is about what we ought to do or be to live well—to flourish."16 In the words of the historian Paul Veyne, "Stoicism is not so much an ethic as it is a paradoxical recipe for happiness.

This, at any rate, is the advice Buddha gave to Anathapindika, a man of "unmeasurable wealth": "He that cleaves to wealth had better cast it away than allow his heart to be poisoned by it; but he who does not cleave to wealth, and possessing riches, uses them rightly, will be a blessing unto his fellows.

Stoic philosophy is like a fertile field, with "Logic being the encircling fence, Ethics the crop, Physics the soil.

According to Epictetus, the primary concern of philosophy should be the art of living: Just as wood is the medium of the carpenter and bronze is the medium of the sculptor, your life is the medium on which you practice the art of living.

The pursuit of virtue results in a degree of tranquility, which in turn makes it easier for us to pursue virtue.

It is indeed curious: Although they would have been satisfied with next to nothing, they nevertheless strove for something. Here is how Stoics would explain this seeming paradox. Stoic philosophy, while teaching us to be satisfied with whatever we've got, also counsels us to seek certain things in life. We should, for example, strive to become better people—to become virtuous in the ancient sense of the word.

Whereas the ordinary person embraces pleasure, the sage enchains it; whereas the ordinary person thinks pleasure is the highest good, the sage doesn't think it is even a good; and whereas the ordinary person does everything for the sake of pleasure, the sage does nothing.

we have complete control over our character. We are, he says, the only ones who can stop ourselves from attaining goodness and integrity.

Epictetus agrees that we should avoid having sex before marriage, but adds that if we succeed in doing this, we shouldn't boast about our chastity and belittle those who aren't likewise chaste.14

The Stoics' advocacy of sexual reserve will sound prudish to modern readers, but they had a point. We live in an age of sexual indulgence, and for many people the consequences of this indulgence have been catastrophic in terms of their peace of mind.

The concept behind personal integrity is wholeness. When a person is the same without as within, when what others know about him is the same truth he knows about himself, he has integrity.