Quotes About Ethics

There are few in our religious culture who understand the necessity of mature internalized conscience, so wise guides are hard to find. You will have many more Aarons building you golden calves than Moseses leading you on any exodus.

for Action and Contemplation puts it this way: "The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better." I

our religious history has been too guilt-based and shame-based, and not enough of what some would call "vision logic

Because the truth is, we never know for sure about ourselves. Who we'll sleep with if given the opportunity, who we'll betray in the right circumstance, whose faith and love we will reward with our own...Only after we've done a thing do we know what we'll do...

Max would conclude, that's who I want to be. The pope. And I'll do the same thing he does. I'll keep all the goddamn money.

Come sit on my lap. I want to hear all about your sexual harassment lunch. -Hank to his secretary, Rachel

Like I said, what makes people tick isn't neccessarily what makes them good. Fast-forward

witness the sad demise of fundamental Western values. Pride. Order. Personal responsibility.

This is crazy, he said. You don't just shoot people. Yes I do, Parker said.

our intellectual quest for truth can never be separated from the cultivation of our moral and aesthetic imagination.

it was no longer a matter of whether I would steal or lie or murder; it was a simple, urgent matter of public pride, a matter of how much I had in common with other people.

Of all things, men do not like to feel that they are guilty of wrong, and if you make them feel guilt, they will try desperately to justify it on any grounds; but, failing that, and seeing no immediate solution that will set things right without too much cost to their lives and property, they will kill that which evoked in them, the condemning sense of guilt.

If a good man does nothing when confronted with a moral wrong, what is lost?

All three cops stood there, reaching deep within themselves, ensuring that whatever moral substance they safeguarded in their most secret corners remained untouched as they looked upon the outrage.

I noted too that I had on many occasions spoken on the subject of the pollution of the spirit (or so I told them), and how the spirit should not be polluted, and how I personally looked askance at, for instance, a latte.

There should be a way to test this, there should be a sex-related metric with which you could measure sex in hotels, especially the illicit variety, but of what would that metric consist?

If we oversold or underdelivered, then it wasn't a sale; it was a lie. Lying is easy; selling is hard. A great salesperson sells in a way that leads to trust and repeat business.

Never go to purchasing or legal alone. Remember, these people would buy a pacemaker from the lowest bidder.

Morality's just comfort food -- it holds no meaning outside of our minds.

Does truth have a moral?

So few people did good in their lives. It was depressing.

The most dangerous flaws are those which are good in moderation.

Percy, lesser beings do many horrible things in the name of the gods. That does not mean we gods approve. The way our sons and daughters act in our names... well, it usually says more about THEM than it does about us.

The people who deserved to die took forever to do so. Those who deserved to live always went too soon.