Life is about conduct and how we conduct ourselves. But two wrongs never make a right.

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

I don’t like freeloaders; I don’t like people who are negative.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.

People who think too much before they act don’t act too much.

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

Because of lack of moral principle, human life becomes worthless. Moral principle, truthfulness, is a key factor. If we lose that, then there is no future.

It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so ‚don’t fuss, dear; get on with it.‘

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

See, people are watching you. Especially your children. They’re taking in every single thing you do. They are like video cameras with legs. And they are always in the record mode. They learn more from what you do than from what you say.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

The dropping of bombs on people – isn’t that terrorism?

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

The last suit that you wear, you don’t need any pockets.

Success and failure are equally disastrous.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

I know of only one duty, and that is to love.

Fear is the mother of morality.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

In the game of cricket, a hero is a person who respects the game and does not corrupt the game. The one who doesn’t or corrupts the game, they are the villain. They should be punished, and they have been punished in the past.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

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

Love is a better teacher than duty.

Thought is the parent of the deed.

I’m just going to say it: I’m pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it’s about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we’ve done – or failed to do – with our personal values.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature – opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

There are a lot of things I never did, because I believe in watching those true Hollywood stories and I see how easy it is to lose track of your life.

We’re all sinners. Everybody you meet all over the world is a sinner.

No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

The worst men often give the best advice.

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

I didn’t do anything at the Queen, whom I admire.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.