Quotes about Ethics

There is not a man beneath the canopy of Heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

I don't believe in good human beings, but I believe you can have structures that make it easier to make the right choice or the wrong choice.

If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don't have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

You know that your happiness and suffering depend on the happiness and suffering of others. That insight helps you not to do wrong things that will bring suffering to yourself and to other people.

To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.

With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.

For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.

Of front-line importance among the most contagious and enduring traits of the leaders of nations and of all callings is that of spotless character.

Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.

The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave.

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues: hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.