Quotes about Ethics

And out of good still to find means of evil.

Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.

The real or supposed necessity of treating the Negroes with rigor gradually brings a numbness upon the heart and renders those who are engaged in it too indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow creatures.

The thought of building a life around minimal morality or minimal significance—a life defined by the question, "What is permissible?"—felt almost disgusting to me. I didn't want a minimal life. I didn't want to live on the outskirts of reality. I wanted to understand the main thing about life and pursue it.

Just being an obedient Christian is increasingly becoming a social, political, legal issue...

Doing right for right's sake is atheistic.Christians should do what God says is right because in doing it we enjoy more of God.

The foundation of moral life as God's truthfulness.

No One Is a Relativist at the Bank

The only freedom that lasts comes from pursuing what we want when we want what we ought.

Relativism, as we saw in the previous chapter, undermines that effort. It kidnaps the happy handmaiden of truth and makes her serve the pride and pleasure of pragmatists. Relativists don't pursue truth. They make the denial of truth serve them.

There is no portrait of Jesus in the New Testament as a merely human teacher of ethics. There is only the Lord of glory. The fulfiller of history. The judge of the universe.

There is no point in winning an argument if you know or suspect you are wrong.