1,250 Quotes About Ethics

Freedom exercised without the tempering of wisdom and the guidance of ethics is freedom gone rogue. And freedom gone rogue is no longer freedom. Rather, it is the rather effective method by which we’ve now chosen to destroy ourselves.

The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.

Always be good to yourself and others. Always do what is right even if doing something wrong is quicker, more rewarding or easier. Always put truth in your every word and action, and never ignore your conscience until you die.

They went to many worlds, took so many. In the name of empire, fear, conquest, science. Every reason was used to justify their actions. The powerful always justify their actions against the weak.

When did it become okay to be more offended by what someone with no power says than by what someone with power does?

Not until "human nature" itself progresses morally will the majority of people prefer peaceful and boring market relations to the violent and exciting relations between coercer and coerced, predator and victim.

Self-serving biases and self-centered agendas are cotton jammed in the ears of our conscience. Even if truth shouts, we can’t hear it.

It was starting to seem to her that being "forward-thinking" too often involved avoiding any kind of thought at all - especially about things that might benefit from a great deal of thinking.

Everybody works according to his ability, some doing more, some doing less, but everyone ought to know whether he is doing good or harm. Artists are not released from that obligation, especially as there are no works of art which do neither harm nor good. If a book, a picture or a melody is accepted by a reader, a spectator or a listener, it means that the reader, spectator or listener has had his emotions stirred; and emotions must be either harmful or useful. They cannot be neutral.