Quotes About Ethics

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll,In pleasing memory of all he stole.

A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practise it.

The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong.

An honest man is the noblest work of God.

An honest man's the noblest work of God

Some who grow dull religious straight commence And gain in morals what they lose in sense.

For when success a lover's toil attends, Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends

What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to shun, That, more than Heaven pursue.

Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right is to submit.

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie

Act well your part, there all the honor lies.

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed." / What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?

Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.

Honour forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine 105   Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign.   Methinks already I your tears survey,   Already hear the horrid things they say,   Already see you a degraded toast,   And all your honour in a whisper lost! 110   How shall I, then, your helpless fame

Act well your part; there all the honour lies.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world.

To demand that a person pee in a cup whenever you wish him to, without a documented reason to suspect that he has been using an illegal drug, is intolerable in our republic. You are saying to him, "I wonder if you are not behaving in a way that I approve of. Convince me that you indeed are. Outrageous. Intolerable.

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.