Quotes About Ethics

civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices.

The preservation of a democratic civilization requires the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove.

Even as rigorous a determinist as Karl Marx, who at times described the social behaviour of the bourgeoisie in terms which suggested a problem in social physics, could subject it at other times to a withering scorn which only the presupposition of moral responsibility could justify.

Religion is a good thing for good people and a bad thing for bad people.

It is fair, therefore, to assume that growing rationality is a guarantee of man's growing morality.

Perhaps there is no better illustration of the ethical impotency of the modern church than its failure to deal with the evils and ethical problems of stock manipulation. Millions in property values are created by pure legerdemain. Stock dividends, watered stock and excessive rise in stock values, due to the productivity of the modern machine, are accepted by the church without murmur if only a slight return is made by the beneficiaries through church philanthropies [1927].

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.

comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable

Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.

Waarom zou hij zich verzetten? Uit morele overwegingen? Kom nu; als je daaraan deed, kon je beter de rest van je leven thuis blijven zitten met dichtgespijkerde ramen en de deur op de grendel - dan had je een kleine kans dat je een fatsoenlijk mens bleef; alleen was er dan niemand die wist hoe fatsoenlijk je was.

Of all sexual aberrations perhaps the most curious is chastity.

It is well-nigh obvious that those who are in favor of the death penalty have more affinities with murderers than those who oppose it.

The whole effort of a sincere man is to erect his personal impressions into laws.

Voler une ombre, dépouiller un souvenir, est-ce vraiment voler ?

all that is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to the best action the most correct judgment

He cannot be a deceiver, since the light of nature teaches us that fraud and deception necessarily proceed from some defect.

Celui qui vient au monde sans rien troubler, ne mérite ni égards, ni patience.

If we ceased to desire the goods of our neighbor, we would never commit murder or adultery or theft or false witness. If we respected the tenth commandment, the four commandments that precede it would be superfluous.

The commandment that prohibits desiring the goods of one's neighbor attempts to resolve the number one problem of every human community: internal violence.

Moralists advise us all to avoid violence, of course, but only insofar as this is possible. They authorize us, at least tacitly, to reply to obvious provocations by the measured counterviolence that I described earlier, and which seems to us always justified.

the book of Leviticus contains the famous commandment "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev. 19:18); that is, you shall love your neighbor neither more nor less than yourself.

I think sanity, however, is the most profound moral option of our time.

His lawyer looks bored," I said. Jim reached for his drink. "You always try to look bored," he said, "when your client is committing perjury.