Quotes About Ethics

según el Dhamma, la ley de la naturaleza, la más importante es la acción mental. Los actos físicos o verbales asumen un significado totalmente distinto, dependiendo de la intención con la que estén hechos.

el Buda anunció: "La mente precede a todos los fenómenos, la mente es lo que más importa. La mente lo produce todo. Si con una mente impura hablas o actúas, entonces el sufrimiento te sigue, como la rueda del carro sigue la huella del animal uncido. Si con una mente pura hablas o actúas, entonces la felicidad te sigue como una sombra que nunca se separa"3.

It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed everyone is at a play. We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.

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

We are not hypocrites in our sleep.

I believe in the theoretical benevolence, and the practical malignity of man.

The only vice that can not be forgiven is hypocrisy.

To think ill of mankind, and not to wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.

Even a highwayman, in the way of trade, may blow out your brains, but if he uses foul language at the same time, I should say he was no gentleman.

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.

I do not think... that any man has the right to take life. When he thinks he has he is at his most dangerous.

Unless education promotes character making, unless it helps men to be more moral, more just to their fellows, more law abiding, more discriminatingly patriotic and public spirited, it is not worth the trouble taken to furnish it.

justice hath no meaning lest it be tempered with mercy."26

two of the most fascinating yet troublesome topics in moral philosophy—forgiveness and redemption—issues that must be dealt with together. Without forgiveness there can be no redemption, and forgiveness that does not grant redemption is hollow.

Usually we think a person is obligated to do something that would benefit many people, but what if that "something" is committing murder? Which is more important, doing good—or not doing wrong?

Luckily, literature—and by "literature" I mean comic books—provides us a way to discuss issues like these without having to experience them. We don't have to trick people into standing in front of a runaway trolley, and we don't have to have a real-life Batman and Joker. That's what thought experiments are for—they let us play through an imaginary scenario and imagine what we should or shouldn't do.

Rorschach did not seek death; he didn't commit suicide by Manhattan. But he understood what the others did not. "It is better to sacrifice life than to forfeit morality. It is not necessary to live, but it is necessary that, so long as we live, we do so honourably."18

a famous quote by Nietzsche, "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster.

As Rorschach so poetically put it, "This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not god who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us."12

People who fight for a country just because they are paid to do so are mercenaries, and they have no problem switching sides if it serves their interests (Lex Luthor is a classic example).

Not all intelligence can be artificial now, so if we make a mistake, the consequences are no longer simply located within an institution or a national culture.

John Stuart Mill, the British philosopher, said, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.