Quotes About Ethics

Men and women who sell their birthright for a mess of pottage will tell you that their demise began with something small, with some seemingly insignificant breach of integrity that escalated. The little things do matter. It is not possible to profess righteousness while flirting with sin.

We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo - men, women and children. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

Turning away women and children in grave danger; warehousing children in cages; deporting people whom we promised to protect - these actions are not reflective of the America I want to live in. They do not represent the values our country claims to hold.

You don't torture people. You don't indiscriminately attack civilians. You protect as good as you can the impact of your warfare on women and children.

Themes of redemption, temptation, and faith don't necessarily apply directly to religion. A lot of people find faith in their lives outside of God and still deal with notions of temptation and redemption that aren't religious.

Along the way I have been able to choose some themes which ask questions - not necessarily force a message on anyone, but at least invite the audience to question things: jury service, dignity in dying, Ireland - and not least because they force me to ask myself questions. Where do I stand?

In terms of the themes, I love gray areas. The show is really about what makes someone truly good or what makes someone truly bad, and are we either of those things? 'Loki' is in that gray area.

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.

Liberals always exempt themselves from the rules that they impose on others.

When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.

Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.

All desirable things... are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

I think good work, sincerity and discipline speak for themselves.

I guess more players lick themselves that are ever licked by an opposing team. The first thing any man has to know is how to handle himself.

At what point is someone precluded from availing themselves of the justification of self-defense because of their own poor judgment or bad behavior?

Numbers can't speak for themselves, and data sets - no matter their scale - are still objects of human design.

I hope people remember me as a good and decent man. And if they do, then that's success.

At the end of the day, if you feel like you're a good person, and your intentions are good, then that's all that matters.

Politicians wanted to mine the Grand Canyon for zinc and copper, and Theodore Roosevelt said, 'No.'

Philosophers and theologians have argued for centuries over the morality of targeted assassinations - a technique that the Israelis use with some frequency - without ever reaching anything approaching consensus.

No argument for abortion survives scientific, philosophical, or theological scrutiny.

The fact that monasticism preceded the identification of greed as a primal sin is an important reminder that our very ability to name sin is a theological achievement.

I think one of the most important directions to be pursued in the 'sciences of human action' is to develop a natural-law ethics based on nature rather than, or at least to supplement, ethics based on theological revelation.

To discover the true principles of Morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods: They have need only of common sense.