Quotes about Ethics

None of us have pure thoughts; we all live in glass houses.

No person connected with me by blood or marriage will be appointed to office.

Many people think… that the Christian commandments (for instance, loving your neighbor as yourself) are purposely made too strict—rather like the clock being put half an hour fast to prevent them getting up much too late in the morning.

A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

there seemed to be a higher code of ethics and sisterliness among those prostitutes than among numerous ladies of the church who have more men for kicks than the prostitutes have for pay.

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

Whether you are shivering with cold or too hot, sleepy or wide awake, spoken well of or badly, dying, or doing anything else, do not let it interfere with doing what is right. For whatever causes us to die is also one of life's processes. Even for this, nothing is required of us than to accomplish well the task at hand.

Within ten days you will seem a god to those to whom you are now a beast and an ape, if you will return to your principles and the worship of reason.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil.

No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.

Goodness—what defines a good person. Keep to it in everything you do.