Quotes About Ethics

Life is not theory. It is reality, with inherent duties to everything and everyone.

It is extremely unfortunate that an editor's own life and practice should be notoriously at variance with his written principles.

The morality of the 21st century will depend on how we respond to this simple but profound question: Does every human life have equal moral value simply and merely because it is human?

Life isn't that simple. Everybody has a dual potential to do good and bad and you're capable of doing both. But as to whether someone is beyond redemption, they're dangerous.

And there's no getting around the fact that all life lives at the expense of another life.

Human life is a series of compromises, and it is not always easy to achieve in practice what one has found to be true in theory.

One must live with all, e'en if life be hell: Crime makes shame, not monetary stricture.

He is not great who is not greatly good.

The age-old and noble thought of 'I will lay down my life to save another,' is nothing more than cowardice.

Although it is nonreligious and nontheistic, it's difficult to present Buddhism without sounding theoretical and religious. As

The sense of purity is a puzzling, and at times a fearful thing. It seems so noble, and it starts at one with morality. But it is a dangerous guide, and can lead us away not only from what is gracious, but also from what is good.

And we really should be considering the moral implications of what we're doing. What kind of a species are we that we treat the rest of life so cheaply? There are those who think that's the destiny of Earth: We arrived, we're humanizing the Earth, and it will be the destiny of Earth for us to wipe humans out and most of the rest of biodiversity. But I think the great majority of thoughtful people consider that a morally wrong position to take, and a very dangerous one.

Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered

Ben Franklin said: "Early to bed and early to rise Make a man healthy wealthy and wise" Lately I have read the advice given to William Randolph Hearst, when a young man, by his father: "Go downtown at noon and rob the other fellows of what they have made during the morning.

You can't believe because she tells you to," I said "No. The question is: how to be a good person if I don't believe anymore.

Do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?...I mean, do our worst actions define us when we're alive? Or, do you think human beings are better than the very worst things we have ever done?

Don't pretend you would never hurt anybody.

No. The question is: how to be a good person if I don't believe anymore.

Like, in Vanity Fair, Becky Sharp is one big ambition machine. She'll stop at zero. Jane Eyre has temper tantrums, throws herself on the floor. Pip in Great Expectations is deluded and money hungry. All of them want a better life and go after it, and all of them are morally compromised. That makes them interesting.

Do not accept an evil you can change." ? E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.

The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink.

Pathos, piety, courage, —they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.

He had acted wrongly, and was still being punished—but wrongly because he had tried to get the best of both worlds.