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Ethics Quotes
"Golden Rule Living is the great simplifier. It places us in another soul's shoes, taking what can appear to be a com- plex decision that involves another and streamlining it to a one-step process of deciding, "If I wouldn't like this done to me, then I shall not do it to another."
18
"A lazy smile reached his lips. 'The mere sight of me shirtless takes your mind there? Good to know. I'd rather a solid fuck than getting my kumbayas out."
18
"She felt that "truthful and "honest were two very different concepts. She could truthfully say that she hadn't eaten Roselyn's Chinese leftovers, but that wasn't honest because it omitted that Eliot did and that Shane did not object."
18
"Some honest people think it is better to know the ways of the devil without being evil."
18
"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."
18
"They told me that nothing was a sin, just a poor life choice. Poor impulse control. That nothing is evil. Any concept of right versus wrong, according to them, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. They said that if anything should force us to modify our personal behavior it should be our allegiance to a social contract, not some vague, externally imposed threat of flaming punishment."
18
"We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach."
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"Do I understand, sir, that you mean the Cause for which our heroes have died is not sacred?'If you were run over by a railroad train your death wouldn't sanctify the railroad company, would it?' asked Rhett and his voice sounded as if he were humbly seeking information."
18
"All a man can betray is his conscience."
18
"It does not seem ever to have been satisfactorily answered why the two first operational atomic bombs were used-against the strongly voiced wishes of the leading physicists responsible for developing them-to destroy two cities instead of being deployed in the equivalent of spectacularly shooting out candles."
18
"Wise people put as much distance between themselves and sexual temptation as possible. They not only get away but also plan their escape route."
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"There is a difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him."
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"I may not have been completely honest about that.""You? Less than truthful? I'm shocked, Nikolai. Shocked and horrified."
18
"Think twice before you pull your trouser and rape a woman; she may be your mother, sister or friend, and you know the consequences that follows."
18
"The point where you become free not to kill, not to exploit, not to destroy, not to compete, because you are no longer afraid of death or the devil or poverty or failure. If you discover this nakedness, you'd better keep it private. People don't like it."
18
"It [gaming] is the child of avarice the brother of iniquity and the father of mischief."
18
"The function of hate, as Sarai saw it, was to stamp out compassion-to close a door in one's own self and forget it was ever there. If you had hate, then you could see suffering-and cause it-and feel nothing except perhaps a sordid vindication."
18
"Don't call a woman a bitch. Call her an ass-hole. It still gets your point across and it's not sexist."
18
"Teach her to question men who can have empathy for women only if they see them as relational rather than as individual equal humans."
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"Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden not silence."
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"Compassion without discipline is egregious self-sabotage."
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"Sometimes you will do good things and not get an acknowledgement for it. Don't let that dishearten you, the world is a better place with your good deeds."
18
"It is not enough just to be good. We must be good for something. We must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for our presence. And the good that is in us must be spread to others. This is the measure of our civility."
18
"Do not consider Collectivists as "sincere but deluded idealists". The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not "idealistic," no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives."
18
"We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it."
18
"A man goes to a foreign country and kills somebody who's not aggressing against him; in a Hawaiian shirt he's a criminal, in a green costume he's a hero who gets a parade and a pension. So that, as a culture, we remain in a state of moral insanity. To point out these contradictions to people in society is to be labeled insane. This is how insane society remains, that anybody who points out logical opposites in the most essential human topic of ethics, is considered to be insane."
18
"HIGGINS. The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another."
18
"Perhaps she would not have thought of wickedness as a state so rare, so abnormal, so exotic, one which it was so refreshing to visit, had she been able to distinguish in herself, as in all her fellow-men and women, that indifference to the sufferings which they cause which, whatever names else be given it, is the one true, terrible and lasting form of cruelty."
18
"If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid - but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself."
18
"Fair play with others is primarily not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us."
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