Quotes about Ethics

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

If there is no absolute by which to judge society, society is absolute.

Suppress prostitution, and capricious lusts will overthrow society.

Society is constantly recalibrating, redefining what it considers to be moral and immoral.

The abolition of the death penalty is making us a civilized society. It shows we actually do mean business when we say we have reverence for life.

Indeed, the sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice--cheating in business, exploitation of the poor--is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.

Who is a Jew? A person whose integrity decays when unmoved by the knowledge of wrong done to other people.

Sanctification is dependent upon human behavior and attitude.

The grand premise of religion is that man is able to surpass himself.

The love of truth is an act of the spirit.

Ye shall kindle no fire—not even the fire of righteous indignation.

Right living is a way to right thinking.