Quotes About Ethics

Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out of business.

I want to say: We use judgements as principlesof judegement.

What is good is also divine. Queer as it sounds, that sums up my ethics. Only something supernatural can express the Supernatural.

Conscience is the voice of God.

The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis [i.e., under the aspect of eternity]; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connection between art and ethics.

What people accept as justification shows how they think and live.

It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics are transcendental. (Ethics and æsthetics are one.)

I know that human beings on the average are not worth much anywhere, but here they are much more good-for-nothing and irresponsible than elsewhere.

La Ética, en tanto surge del deseo de decir algo acerca del significado último de la vida, del bien absoluto, de lo absolutamente valioso, no puede ser una ciencia. Lo que dice no le agrega nada a nuestro conocimiento en ningún sentido. Pero es un testimonio de una tendencia de la mente humana que yo, personalmente, no puedo si no respetar profundamente y que no ridiculizaría jamás, aunque mi vida dependiera de ello

Man kann vernünftigerweise nicht einmal auf Hitler eine Wut haben, wieviel weniger auf Gott.

The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connexion between art and ethics.

the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless.

Thence we pass successively to Theory of Knowledge, Principles of Physics, Ethics, and finally the Mystical (das Mystische).

Toda mi tendencia, y creo que la tendencia de todos los humanos que han tratado alguna vez de hablar o escribir sobre ética y religión, llevaba a estrellarnos contra los límites del lenguaje. Esta carrera contra los muros de nuestra jaula es algo perfecta y absolutamente sin esperanza.

If suicide is allowed then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin. And when one investigates it, it is like investigating mercury vapor in order to comprehend the nature of vapors.

You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.

One cannot reasonably be angry even at Hitler, let alone at God.

Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something which you have to be all the time. Which isn't easy.

È molto più facile essere un eroe che un galantuomo. Eroi si può essere una volta tanto; galantuomini, si dev'esser sempre.

A absoluta isenção jornalística é uma fantasia. A imprensa não deve procurar ser imparcial. Deve buscar não ser injusta.

Dizem que a lei existe para contrariar a natureza. Se o Homem sempre seguisse seus instintos naturais e matasse, roubasse e passasse a mão na bunda do próximo sem qualquer punição, onde estaríamos? No Brasil, acertou.

None of us truly knows what we'll do when the circumstances become so overwhelming and complex that we can't even tell right from wrong.

You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right.

The principled man is merely one whose ancestors were ruthlessly unprincipled, affording him the option of acting upon fine sentiments.