Quotes about Ethics

In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

The great lawyer who employs his talent and his learning in the highly emunerative task of enabling a very wealthy client to override or circumvent the law is doing all that in him lies to encourage the growth in the country of a spirit of dumb anger against all laws and of disbelief in their efficacy.

If given the choice between Righteousness and Peace, I choose Righteousness.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned.

No man is above the law, and no man is below it.

Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The second best thing is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

If we say of a boy or a man, "He is of good character," we mean that he does not do a great many things that are wrong, and we also mean that he does do a great many things which imply much effort of will and readiness to face what is disagreeable. He must not steal, he must not be intemperate, he must not be vicious in any way; he must not be mean or brutal; he must not bully the weak. In fact, he must refrain from whatever is evil. But besides refraining from evil, he must do good.