Quotes About Ethics

See here, son, if a deputy sheriff beats a prisoner to death, it's sweepstakes odds that the county commissioners didn't order it, didn't know it, and wouldn't have permitted it had they known. At worst they shut their eyes to it—afterwards—rather than upset their own applecarts. But assassination has never been an accepted policy in this country.

Men are always for hire who like dirty work.

A man who bets on greed an dishonesty won't be wrong too often.

Indian government seemed as furious over fish as fishermen – but principle of sacredness of all life did not apply to us; they wanted our heads.

Richard, Bill has the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the world owes him a living. He told me sincerely - smugly! - that of course everyone was entitled to the best possible medical and hospital service - free of course, unlimited of course, and of course the government should pay for it.

Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal—else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.

If you do not believe that a man will commit murder for one can of tomatoes, then you have never been hungry.

He knew vaguely that he did not want the nurse to die at that moment, even though it was certainly its right and possibly its obligation to do so.

I told you when you hired him that—" "When I hired him?" "Don't interrupt. —that any man who would take money two ways would take it three ways just as quickly.

I'm not suggesting anything. People get hurt every day. This matter must be cleared up, Joseph, for everybody. The greatest good of the greatest number, as you are so fond of quoting.

There is no such thing as a humane war.

Simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it a 'good.

Matt, you are suffering from a disease of youth—you expect moral problems to have nice, neat, black-and-white answers.

The sort of guardian you can hire is worth about as much as the sort of wife you can buy.

Demokrasi en iyi niyetli yakla??mla bile zavall? bir sistemdir; onunla ilgili söylenebilecek tek iyi ÅŸey, insan ?rk?n?n denemiÅŸ olduÄŸu diÄŸer sistemlerden yakla??k sekiz kat daha iyi olmas?d?r. Demokrasinin en büyük kusuru, liderlerinin oy ald?klar? seçmenlerin erdemlerini de kusurlar?n? da ta??malar?d?r; moral bozucu derecede düÅŸük bir düzey ama baÅŸka ne bekleyebilirsin?

J]uvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an adult virtue--indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge and duty and embraces it more than the self-love he was born with.

Any man who would take money two ways would take it three ways just as quickly.

A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom . . . and the other twenty percent isn't very important.

I see your point. It irks you to see anyone at all who is able to work permitted to live without working. But why do you consider work a virtue?

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required, too, for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil.

The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it.

Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act, which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person.

Young man, can you restore my eyesight?" "Sir? Why, no, sir!" "You would find it much easier than to instill moral virtue—social responsibility—into a person who doesn't have it, doesn't want it, and resents having the burden thrust on him.

of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. If it sometimes pains them to make a choice—if the choice turns out to look like a 'noble sacrifice—