Quotes About Ethics

A full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

In Machiavelli, as in Darwin, nature is set against nature. Fortuna, impersonal blind chance, the agency of floods, havoc-wreaking storms and plagues, confronts virtù, the power of mind to outwit the entropic, leveling tendencies of physical forces. The essence of virtù is to be clever and strong, and it is ethically neutral.

Making a fixed promise that is subject to high levels of uncertainty and then requiring people to meet that promise at all costs is like putting the performance cart before the horse. The result is likely to be the distortion of profitability over time and, in exceptional circumstances, outright fraud.

Peace is found when people stand for morality and reject culture. Defend freedom at all costs and at all times and peace will rule the world instead of tyrants.

The definition of freedom is the infinite value of the human being. Everything that is evil teaches people that they have limited value.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only being uncomfortable. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Man and Superman

They keep the position of head of state out of the hands of those who want it just to gratify their ambition.

The position I took at the time was that we hadn't really examined any of the potential environmental consequences of introducing genetically modified organisms.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not enough for every man's greed."56

Billion dollar bonuses turned rules into polite suggestions.

Any law which runs counter to the good of man is no law at all.

Conscience in most men, is but the anticipation of the opinions of others.

Every act of virtue is an ingredient unto reward.

No sin is small.

You didn't learn the Bible as a Fundamentalist. You learned fragments of Old Testament legalism mixed with Behaviorism & Nietzschean ethics

Whether it's possible or not, being a doctor, you take an oath. To care for your patient, not to kill them. You take an oath to do things that are proper in the medical world. Not to administer something outside of a hospital setting that's not even your area.

the wicked find it a consolation to carp at the good, supposing the guilt of sin to be less, in proportion as the number of those who commit it is greater.

To go about without a linen scarf on is nothing: what is praiseworthy is to be without money to buy one. It is disgraceful and absurd to boast of having neither napkin nor handkerchief and yet to carry a well-filled purse.

Ontological priority is normatively neutral, Plato to the contrary notwithstanding.

I'm the guy who builds things. So when this dam is done, it will have Pete Conroy's name written on it somewhere. Even if nobody else in the world ever finds that place, it doesn't matter because I'll know that it was me and my men who did the job. Just as important, my men always come first. I get a lot more work out of men by treating them like decent human beings. I don't treat them like slaves, as some of the foremen do.

Third, we must never use the doctrine of God's sovereignty to excuse our own sinful actions or decisions that hurt another person.

To say a person is morally bankrupt is to say he or she is completely devoid of any decent moral qualities.