Quotes about Ethics

But there is no perfect guide for discerning God's movement in the world, Contrary to what many conservatives say, the Bible is not a blueprint on this matter. It is a valuable symbol for point to God's revelation in Jesus, but it is not self-interpreting. We are thus place in an existential situation of freedom in which the burden is on us to make decisions without a guaranteed ethical guide.

Do all you can to defeat selfish shepherding in your own heart.

The unpopularity of an obviously right action should not hinder the execution of an obviously right decision.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power.

You may say you won't interfere with another person's soul, but you do—merely by existing. The snag about it is the practical difficulty, so to speak, of not existing.

See that the mind is honest, first; the rest may follow or not as God wills. [That] the fundamental treason to the mind ... is the one fundamental treason which the scholar's mind must not allow is the bond uniting all the Oxford people in the last resort.

I could not attempt to 'kindle the younger generation with the Gospel,' the most I could do would be to suggest to them that the Christian Faith is a logical explanation of the Universe well worth their attention, and neither an irrational myth nor a system of ethics which will stand by itself when the dogmatic foundation has been removed from beneath it.

As the Head of a woman's college she must, thought Harriet, have had a distasteful task; for she looked as though the word 'compromise' had been omitted from her vocabulary; and all statesmanship is compromise.

The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalise false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.

They knew, with the painful conviction of experience, what it meant to say, "I see and approve the better, but follow the worse.