Quotes About Ethics

If you drop a Bible from a height you can kill a field mouse; so maybe the Bible isn't all good.

Never allow your heart to convince your mind that something you know is wrong, is right.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words it is expressed in the choices one makes...and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

That's weird. 'Cause many high-ranking staff members at the USDA were employed by, or are otherwise affiliated with, the meat and dairy industries.159 And if the group responsible for "the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products" is run by people from the same industries they're supposed to be protecting us from . . . well, that would be a conflict of interest. And it is.

It has often been our best instincts, not our worst, that have led us to do harm in the world

What line separates the lawful wartime targeting of an enemy combatant from the extrajudicial murder of a man suspected, but not convicted, of wrongdoing? (p8)

The distinction between war and nonwar may be arbitrary, but we want it to be sharp and clear, because many actions that are considered both immoral and illegal in peacetime are permissible—even praiseworthy—in wartime. Recall

By the way, everything would be much easier to live through if only I would not forget the basic rule I've made for my life: To be kind and good is the main thing! Plainly and simply, to be good—that resolves and unites everything and is better than all cleverness and insistence on "being right.

Geschändet, entehrt, im Blute watend, von Schmutz triefend – so steht die bürgerliche Gesellschaft da, so ist sie. Nicht wenn sie, geleckt und sittsam, Kultur, Philosophie und Ethik, Ordnung, Frieden und Rechtsstaat mimt – als reißende Bestie, als Hexensabbat der Anarchie, als Pesthauch für Kultur und Menschheit –, so zeigt sie sich in ihrer wahren, nackten Gestalt.

Never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.

You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.

Woe to the land where naked greed holds sway.

What I'm talking about is how we maintain our ethics and moral compass when we're in a group. Why? Because conflict is inevitable, and at some point one person will abuse his or her power over another person.

A opinião geral da tia Toinette, de que se deve odiar o adultério, não o adúltero, era essencialmente a visão de Tolstói, e é essa a razão pela qual Anna Kariênina é um dos personagens literários mais instigantes e complexos já criados.

Se todas as Annas Kariêninas soubessem o que as aguarda", ela escreveu, "fugiriam dos prazeres efêmeros, que jamais são nem podem de fato ser prazeres, porque nada que é ilegal chega a constituir a felicidade".

Any judge knows there are many kinds of justice—for instance, ideal justice as opposed to the best-we-can-do justice, which is what we end up with in making so many of our decisions.

rectitude that was almost terrifying." When expounding on termination

Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead

ago AIM patrol had caught some towhead Wisconsin boys trying to rob a liquor store. 'They came down hard on those boys,' he said to Hetta. 'You could call it cruel and unusual.' 'Dad? What'd they do?' 'Made them call their moms.' 'So, like, it was Hi, Mom, come get me I got caught looting?

The only way to fight the righteous was to present an argument that would make giving him what he wanted seem the only righteous thing to do.

They're all the same-- the cop, the criminal, the defense, the prosecutor-- they all share a fundamental belief in the malleability of truth

You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself.

Everything's permissible internally.

The poetry of heroism holds an irresistible appeal for people who aren't involved in a war, especially when they're making piles of money out of one.