Quotes about Ethics
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?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
On the parable of the Good Samaritan: I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin/mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The time is always right, to do what's right.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ' an unjust law is no law at all.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike without serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.