Quotes About Ethics

Protocols are ideals. They're things we aspire to." I throw in an analogy that Jillian gave me when I explained the situation. "They're not enchanted proclamations from the Ministry of Magic that can't be broken. We break them all the time. I'm sure there's some protocol here that says I shouldn't interrupt you, but here I am, interrupting you.

The difference between the good and the bad is the law." "No, Jessica," Damian replies sharply. "The difference is that the good look out for the innocent and protect them from the wicked.

more unselfish than I had been. What was I doing now? Was I finally overcoming that? Were my needs demanding to be addressed, no matter what the potential risk? Was it my time? Did all adulterers go through a similar self-analysis or didn't they give it a second thought? It was certainly easier not to think about it. Could I do that? Could I avoid imagining Kelly's reaction when or if she found out?

No rational society would long permit a justice system to stay in place in which everyone's rights were diminished because the bank robber got caught. He is the bad guy, he chose to gamble his freedom for the loot he took, and he lost the gamble.

After September 11th, that all changed for the Pentagon and the CIA, and like the render and torture program, something which began under Clinton and expanded under Bush, would exponentially increase in power under the Obama administration.

Circulating libraries were denounced as purveyors of pornography and books of brain-rotting triviality.

I]t is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice.

We owe to the Jews,' wrote Winston Churchill in 1920, 'a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all wisdom and learning put together.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong they are not always just, and when they wish to be just they are often no longer strong

It was an integral part of Churchill's leadership code never to scapegoat subordinates.

The idea of God is very useful,' Napoleon said, 'to maintain good order, to keep men in the path of virtue and to keep them from crime.

ministry of justice

when an MP told him that the public demanded all-out bombing of German civilians, especially in Berlin, Churchill replied, 'My dear sir, this is a military and not a civilian war. You and others may desire to kill women and children. We desire (and have succeeded in our desire) to destroy German military objectives. I quite appreciate your point. But my motto is "Business before pleasure.

he demonstrated a flexibility of principle that verged on opportunism.

that Power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That Power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy. What I find unendurable is the sense of our country falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany

Vanniv put a hand over his chest. "I don't know what you're implying, madam professor, but I have a strict 'no attacking cities' policy.

shrugged. "I believe she exists. I just don't particularly believe in praying to someone who sets up a system that kills thousands of teenagers every year.

Everyone must decide for himself what is professional and appropriate here. A test might be to imagine yourself delivering a tough performance review to your friend. Do you cringe at the thought? If so, don't make friends at work. If your stomach remains unaffected, you are likely to be someone whose personal relationships will strengthen work relationships.

Just as you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of office equipment worth $2,000, you shouldn't let anyone walk away with the time of his fellow managers.

People are simply incapable of prolonged, sustained goodness.

Apollo has something to teach us as we enter a new century of genetic modification, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology. It's a cautionary tale about that most fundamentally human of human tragedies .. wanting something so badly that you end up destroying it.

We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

Here's why I find it impossible to be a Republican: any crowd that instantly cheers the execution of 234 individuals is a crowd I want to flee, not join.

Stealing to eat ain't criminal—stealing to be rich is.