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"People don't talk about mercy very much these days-it has a rather old-fashioned ring to it. but it exists and its power is quite extraordinary."
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Exlpore more Ethics quotes
"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?"
"Ethics are the things that say, 'Don't stick your finger in the socket.' The world says, 'It's okay because we've shut off the electricity.' And at the point that we've chosen to listen to the world and ignore our ethics, we say, 'I'm having a really hard time getting back up."
"Do not treat others as you would not like to be treated' frees one from hypocrisy. 'Treat others as you would like to be treated' enslaves one with insincerity."
Explore more quotes by Alexander McCall Smith
"There was no point in telling somebody not to cry, she had always thought; indeed there were times when you should do exactly the opposite, when you should urge people to cry, to start the healing that sometimes only tears can bring. But if there was a place for tears of relief, there might even be a place for tears of pride."
"Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realise how widespread envy was."
"She did not think that those who were late, or the ancestors themselves, would wish punishment upon us, no matter what our transgressions. It was far more likely that there would be love, falling like rain from above, changing the hearts of the wicked; transforming them."
"It's because there are too many people who want to stop us having fun. That's the reason."
"It was always the best way of finding out information; just go and ask a woman who keeps her eyes and ears open and who likes to talk. It always worked. It was no use asking men; they simply were not interested enough in other people and the ordinary doings of people. That is why the real historians of Africa had always been the grandmothers, who remembered the lineage and the stories that went with it."
"We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbors, people we deal with, and so on."
"Mma Ramotswe reflected on how easy it was to find oneself committed to a course of action simply because one lacked the courage to say no."
"International business, once allowed to stalk uncontrolled, killed the local, the small, the quirky."
"We must love those with whom we live and work, and love them for all their failings, manifest and manifold though they be."
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