Ethics & Morality quotes for UPSC & State PCS

No one has the right to obey.

The soul is subject to dollars.

Do a man dirt, yourself you hurt.

Hell is paved with good intentions.

Morality is the beauty of Philosophy.

Virtue is debased by self-justification.

Not circumstance but will can make impure.

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

The time is always right to do what's right.

The needs of a society determine its ethics.

Virtue never has been as respectable as money.

Policy and morals concur in repressing pillage.

Society doesn't have values. People have values.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

Certainly it is correct to say: Conscience is the voice of God.

A good repentance is the best medicine for diseases of the soul.

No evil can be excused because it is done with a good intention.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

If you dig a pit for others to fall into, you will fall into it yourself.

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire.

Tell him to live by yes and no — yes to everything good, no to everything bad.

The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you.

The incident seemed to prove to me that intentions, good or bad, are not enough.

Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.

Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.

There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.

To be good and lead a good life means to give to others more than one takes from them.

Giving alms is only a virtuous deed when you give money that you yourself worked to get.

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.

The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.

There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one's conscience.

Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

You do ill if you praise, and still worse if you reprove in a matter you do not understand.

Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

If I do an evil action, I must suffer for it; there is no power in this universe to stop or stay it.

It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.

Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. 18px|frameless QOTD 2007·11·07 Sound file

We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.

Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is alright, as long your values don't change.

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.

To cease from evil, to do good, and to purify the mind yourself, this is the teaching of all the Buddhas.

It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do.

A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. [Answering the question, what is a cynic?]

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.

To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas. (Verse 183)

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.

The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

I have gained this by philosophy ... I do without being ordered what some are constrained to do by their fear of the law.

We have to change the mindset of our corporate leaders and, obviously, we have to raise the level of corporate governance.

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in providence, than to see their real import or value.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.

Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: Freedom; Justice; Honour; Duty; Mercy; Hope.

Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.

The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.

Thus I have explained to you the most confidential of all knowledge. Deliberate on this fully, and then do what you wish to do.

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.

The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all, and this can only be achieved by uttermost self-sacrifice.

If the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.

Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, at all times also as an end, and not only as a means.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.

Friends, I will disown and repudiate any man of my party who attacks with such foul slander and abuse any opponent of any other party.

We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, self-preservation in the other.

On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.

Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

In judging policies we should consider the results that have been achieved through them rather than the means by which they have been executed.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured.

If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

There is nothing at all in the world that one can think of, or even out of it, that can be held good without qualification, except a good will. (Ch. 1)

The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.

Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.

Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.

Know that all this, whatever moves in this moving world, is enveloped by God. Therefore find your enjoyment in renunciation; do not covet what belongs to others.

There is … only a single categorical imperative and it is this: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

We are firm believers in the maxim that for all right judgment of any man or thing it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

The sense of mercy is found in all men; the sense of shame is found in all men; the sense of respect is found in all men; the sense of right and wrong is found in all men.

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.

The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable.

People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.

I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.

The man who prefers his country before every other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the State. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the long-run the real interest of the landlord.

Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth — that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. But the man that is shall shadow The man that pretends to be.

I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them.

I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.

When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path. What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others.

The world turns and the world changes, But one thing does not change. In all of my years, one thing does not change, However you disguise it, this thing does not change: The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.

Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life — it is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound and universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion.

As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately — but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes — but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.

In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground- a time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.

They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is.

Every art, and every system, and in like manner every action and purpose aims, it is thought, at some good; for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the good is, ‘that at which all things aim.’ (Bk I, Ch I)

History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vs vested interests have never been be known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.

Then what should we work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring. (Hays translation)

...what's absolutely unforgivable is the financial benefit top management people get for laying off people. There is no excuse for it. No justification. This is morally and socially unforgivable, and we will pay a heavy price for it.

Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits.

So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.

Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing?

In Nekhludoff, as in all people, there were two beings; one spiritual, who sought only such happiness for himself as also benefited others; and the animal being, seeking his own happiness for the sake of which he is willing to sacrifice that of the world.

Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into the heart of the nation, and nothing but God’s truth and love can cleanse the land. We must change the moral sentiment.

I do not believe in the doctrine of the greatest number. It means in its nakedness that in order to achieve the supposed good of 51 per cent the interests of 49 per cent may be, or rather, should be sacrificed. It is a heartless doctrine and has done harm to humanity.

It is time, we repeat, that this monstrous slumber of men's consciences should end. It must not be, after that fearful scandal, the triumph of crime, that a scandal still more fearful should be presented to mankind: the indifference of the civilized world. Book I, III

Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.

And hereby it comes to passe, that Intemperance, is naturally punished with Diseases; Rashness, with Mischance; Injustice; with Violence of Enemies; Pride, with Ruine; Cowardice, with Oppression; Negligent government of Princes, with Rebellion; and Rebellion with Slaughter.

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. And the desire of rectifying these mistakes, is the noble ambition of an enlightened understanding, the impulse of feelings that Philosophy invigorates.

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions; with their individuality and independence of choice in matters of business they have lost all their individual choice within the field of morals.

Clinton, Kennedy, they all carried out mass murder, but they didn't think that that was what they were doing - nor does Bush. You know, they were defending justice and democracy from greater evils. And in fact I think you'd find it hard to discover a mass murderer in history who didn't think that.

There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.

You assist an unjust administration most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil administration never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of an evil state is therefore a duty.

Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today. Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them.

An unjust law is no law at all.

Charity is the root of all good works.

We need a science to save us from science.

He who offends others, does not secure himself.

He was as great as a man can be without morality.

Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do.

He who, when he may, forbids not sin, commands it.

Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.

We who seek justice will have to do justice to others.

He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.

Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

Blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime.

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.

It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.

It all comes to this: the simplest way to be happy is to do good.

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.

Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.

One of the goals of education should be to teach that life is precious.

Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself.

Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to become.

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.

Many a crown shines spotless now That yet was deeply sullied in the winning.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with God as if men were listening.

There is no greater wealth than Virtue, And no greater loss than to forget it.

Setbacks in trying to realize the ideal do not prove that the ideal is at fault.

It is easier to denature plutonium than it is to denature the evil spirit of man.

People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself. (15 June 1946)

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem—in my opinion—to characterize our age.

Conquer anger with love, evil with good, meanness with generosity, and lies with truth.

I only take a half share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill.

If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it. For let thy efforts be —

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

Goodness is something so simple: always to live for others, never to seek one's own advantage.

The major incentive to productivity and efficiency are social and moral rather than financial.

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

One is almost driven to the cynical conclusion that men are only decent when they are powerless.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.

The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.

It is ambition, but a generous ambition, that seeks to improve one's status without harm to others.

The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Remember, to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.

Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.

Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.

I detest racialism because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

Land-use ethics are still governed wholly by economic self-interest, just as social ethics were a century ago.

Therefore only an utterly senseless person can fail to know that our characters are the result of our conduct.

No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence.

In the end, man is not entirely guilty — he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent — he continues it.

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.

Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can be justified only as being good for society.

To forget would not only be dangerous but offensive. to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

You don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.

The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name...We must be impartial in thought as well as in action.

Fairness means not to use fraud and trickery in the exchange of commodities and services and the exchange of feelings.

The man who is right is a majority. We, who have God and conscience on our side, have a majority against the universe.

One of the difficulties with all our institutions is the fact that we've emphasized the reward instead of the service.

I think of it all as a test. This is a moral examination that one has to pass... to stand up against such social evils.

If AI can suffer, then it is an ethical subject and it needs protection, it needs rights, just like humans and animals.

That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true Knowledge, all else is only a negation of Knowledge. (138)

Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.

Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

He that defers his charity 'till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.

That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.

Thirkukkural was written to show a good path to the people to create values in life and to develop a good order in the society.

We should never take pleasure in causing pain to others, even to those who have wronged us, but rather strive to do good to all.

Law is the perfection of reason implanted in us by nature, which enjoins what should be done, and forbids what we should not do.

From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.

If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base, and sordid creature, no matter how successful.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self.

Our bodies are perishable, wealth is not at all permanent and death is always nearby. Therefore we must immediately engage in acts of merit.

Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work.

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.

We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.

This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.

For one man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.

Having defeated your enemy you have to choose (unless you want another war within a generation) between exterminating him and treating him generously.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.

Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent.

A boat may stay in water, but water should not stay in boat. A spiritual aspirant may live in the world, but the world should not live within him. (266)

The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.

Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed, but in every case it is someone else's blood. That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything.

Karma is the eternal assertion of human freedom. If we can bring ourselves down by our karma, surely it is in our power to raise ourselves by our own karma.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

The great question is, to discover not what governments prescribe, but what they ought to prescribe; for no prescription is valid against the conscience of mankind.

He who steadily observes the moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ.

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man.

The old saw is that the Quakers went to the New World to do good and ended up doing well. Today, well-meaning reformers go to Washington to do good and end up doing harm.

Living a lie the whole time — the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them ... it corrupts us, it corrupts us in ways you can't imagine.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right?

To kill someone for committing murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands.

There is no outward mark of politeness that does not have a profound moral reason. The right education would be that which taught the outward mark and the moral reason together.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way.

The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.

Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose.

It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference.

Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community.

That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a maxim that has been long and generally approved; never, that I know of, controverted.

And most of all, I want to emphasize to you, Mr. President-elect, that we now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.

Guide the people by law, subdue them by punishment; they may shun crime, but will be void of shame. Guide them by example, subdue them by courtesy; they will learn shame, and come to be good.

A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.

It is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard of success; and there can be no falser standard than that set by the deification of material well-being in and for itself.

For my part, I favour an approach to statecraft that embraces principles, as long as it is not stifled by them; and I prefer such principles to be accompanied by steel along with good intentions.

As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.

The impoverishment of economics related to its distancing from ethics affects both welfare economics (narrowing its reach and relevance) and predictive economics (weakening its behavioural foundations).

I think computer viruses should count as life … I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.

A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.

A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox. (Verse 1)

Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust or lose your sense of shame or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will or hypocrisy or a desire for things best done behind closed doors.

The most important thing is to actually think about what you do. To become aware and actually think about the effect of what you do on the environment and on society. That's key, and that underlies everything else.

The law of progress holds that everything now must be better than what was there before. Don’t you see if you want something better, and better, and better, you lose the good? The good is no longer even being measured.

For legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.

Religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules, it ceases to be a religion, as it kills responsibility which is an essence of the true religious act.

I honor — we honor — the service of John McCain, and I respect his many accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine. My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign.

Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal. For the oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more—always more—even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have.

The horseman serves the horse, The neatherd serves the neat, The merchant serves the purse, The eater serves his meat; 'Tis the day of the chattel, Web to weave, and corn to grind; Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind.

The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous.

In every stock-jobbing swindle everyone knows that some time or other the crash must come, but every one hopes that it may fall on the head of his neighbour, after he himself has caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety.

Genuine religion is not about speculating about God or the soul or about what happened in the past or will happen in the future; it cares only about one thing—finding out exactly what should or should not be done in this lifetime.

Money is miraculous. What miraculous facilities has it yielded, will it yield us; but also what never-imagined confusions, obscurations has it brought in; down almost to total extinction of the moral-sense in large masses of mankind!

Whenever racial discrimination exists it is a tragic expression of man's spiritual degeneracy and moral bankruptcy. Therefore, it must be removed not merely because it is diplomatically expedient, but because it is morally compelling.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right — stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

Revolutionary morality does not fall from the sky. It is developed and consolidated through persevering daily struggle and effort. Like jade, the more it is polished the more it shines. Like gold, it grows ever purer as it foes into the melting pot.

This is an age that has produced floods of how-to-do-it books, and it is also an age of how-to-do-it science. It is, in other words, the age of technology, in which if we know how to do something, we do it without pausing to inquire whether we should.

It is a wicked thing to be neutral between right and wrong. Impartiality does not mean neutrality. Impartial justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.

Science contributes moral as well as material blessings to the world. Its great moral contribution is objectivity, or the scientific point of view. This means doubting everything except facts; it means hewing to the facts, let the chips fall where they may.

War damages, the fabric of civilisation not by the destruction it causes (the net effect of a war may even be to increase the productive capacity of the world as a whole) nor even by the slaughter of human beings, but by the stimulated hatred and dishonesty.

Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Capitalism is being attacked not because it is inefficient or misgoverned but because it is cynical. And indeed a society based on the assertion that private vices become public benefits cannot endure, no matter how impeccable its logic, no matter how great its benefits.

A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact.

We are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. We cannot quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we can't know if we'll be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it.

Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them. ... If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone.

Let your heart feel for the affliction, and distresses of every one—and let your hand give, in proportion to your purse—remembering always, the estimation of the Widows mite. But, that it is not every one who asketh, that deserveth charity; all however are worthy of the enquiry—or the deserving may suffer.

The idea of the Nation is one of the most powerful anaesthetics that Man has invented. Under the influence of its fumes the whole people can carry out its systematic programme of the most virulent self-seeking without being in the least aware of its moral perversion,-in fact feeling dangerously resentful if it is pointed out.