Quotes About Ethics

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.

Fake news has emerged a new menace, whose purveyors proclaim themselves as journalists and taint this noble profession.

There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?

If science doesn't convince you, just Google 'cheating politicians' for the long and sordid list of men - like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Sanford, and John Edwards - whose hormones got the best of them.

The greatest moral leader of my lifetime was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose private life does not bear close examination.

No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.

It doesn't matter whose banner I work for. If it is good, then I do it if I want to do it.

People often look up to actors. It is not right on their part to do songs whose lyrics are not good. Actors have social responsibility.

I ever will profess myself the greatest friend to those whose actions best correspond with their doctrine; which, I am sorry to say, is too seldom the case amongst those nations who pretend most to civilization.

I play a nice crazy lady whose morals are right but who is really foundering.

Should those whose actions lead to the death or injury of a child get a free pass?

More and more these days what I find myself doing in my stories is making a representation of goodness and a representation of evil and then having those two run at each other full-speed, like a couple of PeeWee football players, to see what happens. Who stays standing? Whose helmet goes flying off?

But I would defy anyone to go back over the years and tell me anyone whose career I've ruined, anyone whom I've driven out of the service, anyone I've fired from a job.

I have always served the public to the best of my ability. Why? Because, like every other man, it is to my interest to do so.

I personally feel that no human is a hero or a villain. All of us have our grey sides, and that is why grey interests me: because it's more human, more life-like.

I love beautiful things; I like having nice clothes, and I can appreciate why other people do - but I've also started to learn more about the impact of what we buy: how things are made, how much you buy and the quality of everything.

Why do you not practice what you preach.

The simplest way of understanding justice is giving people what they deserve. This idea goes back to Aristotle. The real difficulty begins with figuring out who deserves what and why.

Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry, you're a moocher?

I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?

All religions have based morality on obedience, that is to say, on voluntary slavery. That is why they have always been more pernicious than any political organization. For the latter makes use of violence, the former - of the corruption of the will.