top of page
.png){kind=small}
Ethics Quotes
"In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so."
33
"What is good is also divine. Queer as it sounds, that sums up my ethics. Only something supernatural can express the Supernatural."
33
"We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance, and old-fashioned gumption. We really do."
33
"Caleb told me that our mother said there was evil in everyone, and the first step to loving someone else is to recognize that evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them."
33
"Don't we get it? To put our arm around someone who is gay, someone who has an addiction, somebody who lives a different lifestyle, someone who is not what we think they should be doing that has nothing to do with enabling them or accepting what they do as okay by us. It has nothing to do with encouraging them in their practice of what you or I might feel or believe is wrong vs right.It has everything to do with being a good human being. A good person. A good friend."
33
"The character to follow thru on commitments made to others is built by following thru on commitments made to self."
33
"Thus, you see, he arrived at the same end, via supposed duty, that he was previously pledged to via interest. I fancy a good number of us, when any line of action will promote our own interest, can make ourselves believe that reasons exist which compel us to it as a duty."
33
"Well, that brings us to the point: There is only one way to protect ourselves from the deadly diseases that stalk the human family. It is abstinence before marriage, then marriage and mutual fidelity for life to an uninfected partner."
33
"Making someone feel obligated, pressured or forced into doing something of a sexual nature that they don't want to is sexual coercion. This includes persistent attempts at sexual contact when the person has already refused you. Nobody owes you sex, ever; and no means no, always."
33
"When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice."
32
"I think the ethics and morals of genetic engineering are very complicated. It intrigues me."
32
"The love of money is the root of all evil. That's why Jesus issues more warnings about materialism and wealth than any other sin. Obviously, it takes a steady hand to hold a full cup."
32
"Much that may seem evil can be good."
32
"What should you, O man, do, you who seek your own glory whenever you do anything good, while when you do something bad, you figure out ways to blame God."
32
"He sighed. "I don't think an apology will do, Mercy. Because an apology implies that you wouldn't do it again. And, under the circumstances, you wouldn't do anything differently, would you?"No."
32
"Not to punish evil is equivalent to authorizing it."
31
"To dispense knowledge without moral guidance would be grossly irresponsible."
31
"You know how much I am inclined to explain all disputes among philosophical schools as merely verbal disputes or at least to derive them originally from verbal disputes."
31
"Compassion is the chief law of human existence."
31
"War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off."
31
"What I am recommending to the unmarried person, therefore, comes straight out of the Word: Stay out of bed unless you there alone! I know that advice is difficult to put into practice today. But I didn't make the rules. I'm just passing them along. God's moral laws are not designed to oppress us or deprive us of pleasure. They are there to protect us from the devastation of sin, including disease, heartache, divorce, and spiritual death. Abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward is the Creator's own plan, and no one has devised a way to improve on it."
31
"It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone."
30
"In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates."
30
"Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come."
30
"In the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many of the journals in the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? And who should be the judge? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil generally, go on together, and man must make his choice."
30
"When do you become a man? Becoming a man means doing the right thing even though it may be hard or difficult. Boys do what is easiest. A man does what is right, whether easy or not."
29
"If you take a moment to consider the state of the world, the thing you notice is that there are plenty of babies being born; the planet doesn't really need all of us to produce more babies."
29
"Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods."
29
"There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living."
29
"Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan."
29
"It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result."
29
"The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another."
29
"Giving her a slow, coaxing smile that turned the heat in the room up by a thousand degrees, he stroked her lips with the balls of his thumbs as he murmured, 'Can we get back to talking about possibly inviting that werewolf for sex?"
29
"Technology challenges us to assert our human values, which means that first of all, we have to figure out what they are."
29
"One never knows how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? It is the very least question of definitions."
28
"Being a person is respect, because you're not a cat or a dog or a bunch of tulips, you're a human person and humanness isn't like something there can be different amounts of, it's maxed out from the start, total respect every time - kill one, kill a trainload, you're dissing the transcendental is all."
28
"Thus, dear friends, I have said it clearly enough, and I believe you ought to understand it and not make liberty a law..."
28
bottom of page