Quotes About Ethics

The way to find justice is to deal fairly with other people and not worry about how they deal with you.

I see the beauty of Mike's attempt to devise an ideal ethic and applaud his recognition that such must start by junking the present sexual code and starting fresh. Most philosophers haven't the courage for this; they swallow the basics of the present code--monogamy, family pattern, continence, body taboos, conventional restrictions on intercourse, and so forth--then fiddle with details...even such piffle as discussing whether the female breast is an obscene sight! (p.365)

A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it—it keeps him upright.

Unless you intend to kill him immediately thereafter, never kick a man in the balls. Not even symbolically. Or perhaps especially not symbolically.

Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.

Once a man gets a reputation as a liar, he might as well be struck dumb, for people do not listen to the wind.

Straining at gnats and swallowing camels is a required course in all law schools.

But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stink in' proud to use the title. I won't touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees.

Now let me get something straight: you are not in my debt. You can't be. Impossible - because I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it. So please don't invent a debt that does not exist, or before you know it you will be trying to feel gratitude - and that is the treacherous first step downward to complete moral degradation.

My point is that one person is responsible, Always. If H-bombs exist--and they do--some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as 'state'. Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

How is a sincere criminal, trying hard, going to get ahead in his profession if his victim fails to cooperate?

An honest politician is one that stays bought.

contrary to some opinions, it is better to be a dead hero than a live louse. Dying is messy and inconvenient but even a louse dies someday no matter what he will do to stay alive and he is forever having to explain his choice.

If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!

If it has to be done, a man—a real man—shoots his own dog himself; he doesn't hire a proxy who may bungle it.

certain feet were made for stepping on ,in order to improve the breed, promote the general welfare and minimize the ancient insolence of office..

But I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Customs, morals--is there a difference?

Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility.

Congratulations! A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom.

Jill, of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time.

The universe will let us know—later—whether or not Man has any "right" to expand through it. In

I wouldn't want Larry to die through my oversight. Larry is entitled to work out his own damn foolishness without having it cut short through my carelessness. Duke, I believe in everyone's working out his own damnation his own way . . . but nevertheless that is no excuse for an adult to give a dynamite cap to a baby as a toy.