Quotes About Ethics

Brian knows the affair is wrong. He's known from the moment Wendy first undressed in his office. But with her hot, wet tongue in his ear, and her taut, pink nipples straining against his starched white shirt, and with Mick Jagger's strident voice squawking about satisfaction on the tiny transistor radio, Brian's body refuses to obey. Instead of shoving Wendy out the door, he shoves her onto the unmade bed.

The best of men are just men at best.

Myself, and the majority of officers in a position of command, will not execute unconditionally the orders of the Head of State.

I suppose, too, that the moment when a man hears that a girl's fiance has died only that day is the last moment that that man should ever begin to fall in love with her, but I'm afraid that's just how it was. The emotions are no respecters of the niceties, the proprieties and decencies of this life...

He would have made an excellent politician or statesman but had unfortunately been cursed from birth with an unshakable incorruptibility and moral integrity. The

nations are collectively judged, and suffer for their misdeeds here and now.

I have no desire ... to preach a high-minded and merely edifying version of love

Cultural relativism destroys both one's own and the good.

The same people who struggle to save the snail-darter bless the pill, worry about hunting deer and defend abortion. Reverence for nature, mastery of naturewhichever is convenient. The principle of contradiction has been repealed.

Bacon, Locke, Descartes, Hume, and all the others knew they were giving rights to vulgarity. But in so doingin addition to caring for mans well-beingthey were providing rights for themselves.

Plato says a multitude can never philosophize and hence can never recognize the seriousness of philosophy or who really philosophizes. Attempted to influence the multitude results in forced prostitution.

Toda crença é respeitável, quando sincera e conducente à prática do bem. Condenáveis são as crenças que conduzam ao mal.

A melancholy conclusion, if such were really the case for, were it so, good and evil would be alike devoid of aim every man would be justified in thinking only of himself, and in subordinating every other consideration to the satisfaction of his material instincts. Thus all social ties would be broken, and the holiest affections would be destroyed forever.

Se tua mão é motivo de escândalo, corta-a; afirmativa enérgica que seria um absurdo se tomada ao pé da letra. Significa, simplesmente, a necessidade de destruir em si todas as causas de escândalo,

Quando uma coisa é má, não há elogio que a torne boa.

virtude da vossa geração é a atividade intelectual; seu vício é a indiferença moral.

Although I condemn any violence, if two people are fighting, I'm probably gonna be on one side or the other, even though I'm against violence.

Life doesn't make sense. It's against the law for somebody to steal your bike but apparently it doesn't matter if somebody tries to steal your best friend. Well you can always get a new bike. But how do you replace a best friend

Character is who you are when no one is looking.

they saw in democracy something more than opportunities for self-interest and self-aggrandizement,

Mercy—or at least a nolle prosequi—may, perhaps, be the most appropriate conclusion to the crime—and the glory—of Robert E. Lee after all.32

Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.

First, where the law is the major source for bioethics, morality is too easily confused with legality and moral questions too quickly reduced to legal questions. Moreover, the law is better at telling us what not to do than at providing ends and goals worthy of our humanity.

As no designation of good and evil can be absolute, neither can it be fixed; no law which is just now will be forever just, and no political institution designed to secure the good can remain the best means to that good.