Quotes About Ethics

It was a day when I was preparing a speech to be delivered in praise of the Emporor; there would be a lot of lies in the speech and they would be applauded by those who knew that they were lies." The Confessions of St. Augustine

Taking the first footstep with a good thought, the second with a good word, and the third with a good deed, I entered Paradise." Book of Arda Viraf (circa 6th century) ZOROASTRIAN RELIGIOUS TEXT

If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

There's nothing wrong with hunting, in its place. But there are many preferable occupations when in the presence of a young woman.

Just because everyone's doing it doesn't make it right. Wrong's wrong, even in a ruddy war.

Decency League is backed by the most influential

Amigo mío, lo hecho está bien hecho; y mejor andaría el mundo si, en casos dados, no fuesen leguleyos trapisondistas y demás cuervos de Temis, sino duendes, los que administrasen justicia. Y con esto, buenas noches y que Dios y Santa María nos tengan en su santa guarda y nos libren de duendes y remordimientos.

Hay gente tan corrupta que no se da cuenta de su propia corrupción

The gods don't deserve any special deference solely because they're powerful. If they can judge us based on our actions, we should be treating them according to their own.

Miko: You would stand between me and this evil murderer? Hinjo: I'll stand between any two murderers I wish, thanks.

Est Sularis Oth Mithas' in the old tongue. 'My Honor is My Life.' 

We say—say 'Est Sularis Oth Mithas' in the old tongue. 'My Honor is My Life.

Bonus vir nm est nisi qu bonus est omnibus. (Publilius Sent.)

Doing what is right, isn't always easy, nor was it meant to be. The path you wish to take will be opposed and sometimes one of those opposers is yourself.

Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.

Scott calls Bois-Guilbert 'an unprincipled voluptuary,' which is hard to improve on.

I would propose the following minimal guideline: extrabiblical sources stand in a hermeneutical relation to the New Testament; they are not independent, counterbalancing sources of authority. In other words, the Bible's perspective is privileged, not ours. However tricky it may be in practice to apply this guideline, it is in fact a meaningful rule of thumb that discriminates significantly between different approaches to New Testament ethics.

Beware of the interpreter who always quotes only the Haustafeln (e.g., Col. 3:22: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything") and never wrestles with Galatians 5:1 ("For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery")—or vice versa.

no single principle can account for the unity of the New Testament writings; instead, we need a cluster of focal images to govern our construal of New Testament ethics.

When human beings engage in homosexual activity, they enact an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual reality: the rejection of the Creator's design.

There is no meaningful distinction between theology and ethics in Paul's thought, because Paul's theology is fundamentally an account of God's work of transforming his people into the image of Christ.

Homosexual acts are not, however, specially reprehensible sins; they are no worse than any of the other manifestations of human unrighteousness listed in the passage (w. 29–31)—no worse in principle than covetousness or gossip or disrespect for parents.

Homosexual activity will not incur God's punishment: it is its own punishment, an

As Zabelka remarked, the just war theory is "something that Christ never taught or even hinted at."6