Quotes About Ethics

Is it not a terrible thing to be forced by society to do things which all of us as individuals regard as abominable crimes?

A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes. Man's ultimate responsibility is to God alone.

You can't get to a pleasant place to be at unless you use pleasant methods to get there. When you are dealing with a human society the means is fully as important as the end.

Living in a society, instead of on a desert island, does not relieve a man of the responsibility of supporting his own life.

Socialism is simply a re-assertion of that tribal ethics whose gradual weakening had made an approach to the Great Society possible.

If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say "No" to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses.

In society one needs a flexible virtue; too much goodness can be blamable.

Imagine how wicked society would be if the fear of God and the fear of civil law were both completely removed.

The businessman is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society.

The question is: what is a sane man to do in an insane society?

A civilized society must count animals as worthy of moral consideration and ethical treatment. The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

No society has gone the way of gulags or concentration camps by following the path of Spinoza and Einstein and Jefferson and Thomas Paine

A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.

Blaming society makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his actions.

Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can be justified only as being good for society.

I will create value for society, rather than extract it.

I have always maintained that society has no business dictating morality.

The fact is, society is made more hospitable by every individual who acts as if 'do unto others' really was a rule.

Who will guard the guards ? If we're the guards of society, then who will watch us and make sure that we're not dangerous?

If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.

I believe I have a personal responsibility to make a positive impact on society.

No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.