There are normal times when it is wholly admirable to be steadfast, resolute, unconflicted, and therefore when integrity is unmistakenly a virtue. The person of integrity knows what to do, and does it. But as...

It may be considered folly by common opinion but this refusal to destroy life unnecessarily, this reverence for it, must become a deeply implanted part of his ethical standard.

Not only to myself or before the mirror or at the hour of my death, which I hope will be long in coming, but in the presence of my children and my wife and in...

Would you agree,” he said, “that man’s sole duty is to produce as much pleasure as possible?””Only if the pleasure produced is equivalent to the diminution of pain.” My father crossed his arms. “And only...

It would be an undoubted advantage if we were to leave God out altogether and honestly admit the purely human origin of all the regulations and precepts of civilization. Along with their pretended sanctity, these...

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.

Like tiny gods, all that we say and do holds a power so great that any one of us in any given moment can be responsible for the birth of a new civilization or the...

So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of...

It is not at all surprising that the disciples imagined that the law had been abrogated, when Jesus made promises like this. For these promises reversed all popular notions of right and wrong, and pronounced...

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.

Saying of the ProphetThe TongueA man slips with his tongue more than with his feet.

It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among...

He moved now, A tiny jerk of movement, and Elissa saw what she hadn’t grasped before. that his fingers showed white and bloodless against he dark blue of his jacket, that his face was so...

There is always a day of reckoning.” The good among the great understand that every choice we make adds to the strength or weakness of our spirits—ourselves, or to use an old fashioned word for...

While mistakes may be local, in today’s connected world embarrassment is global

Make ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws.

The answer is that there is no good answer. So as parents, as doctors, as judges, and as a society, we fumble through and make decisions that allow us to sleep at night–because morals are...

Pod kvazi-mitskim totalitetom tehničke racionalnosti prijeti nam inteligencija bez patosa, inteligencija kojoj nije potreban nikakav jezik koji ima svoj vlastiti smisao jer ionako sve funkcionira bez bilo kakvog proturječja; ta inteligencija ne zna za spomen...

Life in a box was unbearable.How did humans stand it?

We think of dogs as being more like people than pigs; but pigs are highly intelligent animals and if we kept pigs as pets and reared dogs for food, we would probably reverse our order...

Bullying is an attack upon the runts of the litter – the weak of the species, and it is predicated on a lack of bond with the parents. If a child has a secure bond...

The answer of Solon on the question, ‘Which is the most perfect popular govemment,’ has never been exceeded by any man since his time, as containing a maxim of political morality, ‘That,’ says he, ‘where...

For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have...

I consider the law prohibiting the sharing of copies with your friend the moral equivalent of Jim Crow. It does not deserve respect.

Those who think that modern times are wickeder than previous times are apt to identify the cause as the weakening of a sense of moral law, associated with the departure of religious traditions of morality...

How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action?

Just take the weapon you hold in your hand and drive it through his heart,” Valentine’s voice was soft. “One simple motion. Nothing you haven’t done before.”Jace met his father’s stare with a level gaze....

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

With nature on your side, you don’t need numbers, you don’t need financing and you certainly don’t need to make friends with people you should be fightingagainst.

Men would no longer be victims of nature or of their own largely irrational societies: reason would triumph; universal harmonious cooperation, true history, would at last begin. For if this was not so, do the...

We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.

A man who wills commands something within himself that renders obedience, or that he believes renders obedience.

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual validation as...

In our tribunal, we look only at personal criminal responsibility in a very tightly defined, narrow way and we demand proof beyond a resonable doubt about the involvement of the individual. We do no have...

The House Ethics Committee doesn’t look at anything.

In modern times an idea can be refuted, yes, but not retracted

Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.

Science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no...

We cannot respect something just because millions or billions believe in it! We can respect something only if it is complying with the high intelligence and the ethics!

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or...

if ethics is not the engine of success, in the train of growth, it sure is a guard, with a flag, which may be green, or at times red

In the New Testament, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude.

the miraculous” is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had possession of their minds, that ‘the miraculous’ was expected, that it was their daily...

But for this book we could not know right from wrong.

Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics – a rational ethics – as a precondition of rebirth.

And what we say – that what He willeth is right and what He doth not not will is wrong, is not so to be understood, as if, should God will something inconsistent, it would...

Ethics are so annoying. I avoid them on principle.

Things taste better outdoors. And if it’s a forbidden thing, so much the better.

You still owe me a million dollars.” I’d presented him with a bill for proving his innocence and getting him freed from prison. He had yet to pay. Couldn’t imagine why.”Yeah, I was hoping we...

We’ve also evolved the ability to simply ‘pay it forward’: I help you, somebody else will help me. I remember hearing a parable when I was younger, about a father who lifts his young son...