Quotes About Ethics

The affair, in short, had been of the kind that most of the young men of his age had been through and emerged from with calm consciences and an undisturbed belief in the abysmal distinction between the women one loved and respected and those one enjoyed—and pitied.

she likes being good, and I like being happy.

Brains & culture seem non-existent from one end of the social scale to the other, & half the morons yell for filth, & the other half continue to put pants on the piano-legs.

Denis Eady was the son of Michael Eady, the ambitious Irish grocer, whose suppleness and effrontery had given Starkfield its first notion of smart business methods, and whose new brick store testified to the success of the attempt. His son seemed likely to follow in his steps, and was meanwhile applying the same arts to the conquest of the Starkfield maidenhood. Hitherto Ethan Frome had been content to think him a mean fellow; but now he positively invited a horse-whipping.

when ''such things happened'' it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always criminal of the woman.

Of course he's good-he's too stupid to be bad

I don't say it wasn't straight, and yet I don't say it was straight. It was business.

Even when it's the other way round it ain't always so easy to decide how far that kind of thing's binding… and they say shipwrecked fellows'll make a meal of friend as quick as they would of a total stranger.

But these mysteries, and many others, were closely locked in Mr. Jackson's breast; for not only did his keen sense of honour forbid his repeating anything privately imparted, but he was fully aware that his reputation for discretion increased his opportunities of finding out what he wanted to know.

half the opprobrium of such an act lies in the name attached to it. Call it blackmail and it becomes unthinkable; but explain that it injures no one, and that the rights regained by it were unjustly forfeited, and he must be a formalist indeed who can find no plea in its defence.

Seems to me it all boils down to one thing. Was this fellow we're supposing about under any obligation to the other party - the one he was trying to buy the property from?' Ralph hesitated. 'Only the obligation recognized between decent men to deal with each other decently.' Mr. Spragg listened to this with the suffering air of a teacher compelled to simplify upon his simplest question.

THE TOUCHSTONE

Real civilisation means an education that extends to the whole of life, in contradistinction to that of school or college: it means an education that forms speech, forms manners, forms taste, forms ideals, and above all forms judgment.

A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.

As to the right of men to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie, no such right exists. Men are never in a state of total independence of each other. It is not the condition of our nature: nor is it conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action without its having some effect upon others; or, of course, without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites.

He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.

A representative owes not just his industry but his judgement

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.

All That Is Needed For Evil To Succeeded, Is For Good People To Do Nothing

A revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the good.

Massacre, torture, hanging! These are your rights of men!

where there is no sound reason, there can be no real virtue.