top of page
.png){kind=small}
Exlpore more Ethics quotes
"The real trouble is that 'kindness' is a quality fatally easy to attribute to ourselves on quite inadequate grounds. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that 'his heart's in the right place' and 'he wouldn't hurt a fly,' though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature. We think we are kind when we are only happy: it is not so easy, on the same grounds, to imagine oneself temperate, chaste, or humble."
"At certain moments, the foot slips ; at others, the ground gives way. How many times had that conscience, furious for the right, grasped and overwhelmed him! How many times had truth, inexorable, planted her knee upon his breast! How many times, thrown to the ground by the light, had he cried to it for mercy!"
"Paying attention to the ethical implications of our choices has never been more pressing-or more complicated-than it is today."
"There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty."
"Messages of instant gratification leads to a corrupt society."
"Very few people see their own actions as truly evil,... It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not."
Explore more quotes by George Eliot
"Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder."
"I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear."
"Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return."
"An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry."
"And when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment."
"Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet."
"I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best."
bottom of page