"A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever anyone at hand sets you right and unsettles you in an opinion, but this change of opinion should come only because you are persuaded that something is just or to the public advantage, not because it appears pleasant or increases your reputation."

Ethics, Reason, Justice, Opinion, Change

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"A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever anyone at hand sets you right and unsettles you in an opinion, but this change of opinion should come only because you are persuaded that something is just or to the public advantage, not because it appears pleasant or increases your reputation."

Exlpore more Ethics quotes

"The widespread assumption that ethical behavior takes the fun out of life is false. In actuality, living ethically ensures that relationships in our lives, including encounters with strangers, nurture our spiritual growth."

bell hooks, American Critic

Ethics, Joy, Relationship, Morality

"I have a yearning for my beautiful country, and I love its people because of their misery. But if my people rose, simulated by plunder and motivated by what they call "patriotic spirit" to murder, and invaded my neighbour's country, then upon the committing of any human atrocity I would hate my people and my country."

Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese Philosopher

Ethics, Patriotism, War, Humanity

"He that resolves to deal with none but honest men must leave off dealing."

Thomas Fuller, English Clergyman

Ethics, Honesty, Integrity, Trust, Decision

"I've never seen exquisite fallen beings, and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women are the same.' 'But the Magdalen?' 'Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered."

Leo Tolstoy, Russian Novelist

Ethics, Morality, Religion, Judgment, Truth

"Sweep aside those hatred-eaten mystics, who pose as friends of humanity and preach that the highest virtue man can practice is to hold his own life as of no value. Do they tell you that the purpose of morality is to curb man's instinct of self-preservation? It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live."

Ayn Rand, Russian Writer

Ethics, Morality, Self-Preservation, Life, Values

"It isn't a natural thing to keep on worrying about the morality of one's material prosperity. These are proclivities superinduced by modern conditions of the conscience. There is a natural resistance in every healthy human being to such distressful heart-searchings."

H. G. Wells, English Author

Ethics, Morality, Wealth, Conscience, Humanity

"The task of the moral philosopher-thinker is to support and strengthen the voice of human conscience, to recognize what is good or what is bad for people, whether they are good or bad for society in a period of evolution. May be a "voice crying in the wilderness", but only if that voice remains lively and uncompromising, it is possible to transform the desert into fertile land."

Erich Fromm, American Psychologist

Ethics, Morality, Philosophy, Conscience

"A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer."

Seneca, Roman Philosopher

Ethics, Generosity, Intention, Gift, Kindness

"You cannot sensibly expect a starving 'God-fearing' man to honor the 8th commandment."

Mokokoma Mokhonoana, South African Philosopher

Ethics, Truth, Regret, Wisdom, Power

"When one acts on pity against justice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer."

Ayn Rand, Russian Writer

Ethics, Pity, Justice, Guilt, Innocence

Explore more quotes by Marcus Aurelius

"Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it."

Change

"Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so."

Will

"Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh."

Death

"Nothing is more scandalous than a man that is proud of his humility."

Character

"Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live."

Man

"Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature."

Purpose

"Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature."

Nature

"Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back."

Death

"If the gods have determined about me and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well, for it is not easy even to imagine a deity without forethought; and as to doing me harm, why should they have any desire towards that? For what advantage would result to them from this or to the whole, which is the special object of their providence? But if they have not determined about me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at least, and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them."

Fate

"Time is like a river of fleeting events and its current is strong as soon as something comes into sight it is swept past us and something else takes its place and that too will be swept away."

Time