A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls… saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?

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

It’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings.

I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

Fear is the mother of morality.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

Good jokes are gems. A good idea is hard to come by. I couldn’t give them to someone else, even for money. It just wouldn’t seem right.

Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, exists when one goes against one’s conscience. To listen to and obey it means, in fact, to decide in face of what is perceived as good or evil. And on this decision pivots the goodness or malice of our action.

The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent.

I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty.

If we could establish a deep abiding relationship with nature, we would never kill an animal for our appetite; we would never harm, vivisect, a monkey, a dog, a guinea pig for our benefit. We would find other ways to heal our wounds, heal our bodies.

It’s so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

Trouble brews when we steal from the poor and give to the rich.

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.

If what you have done is unjust, you have not succeeded.

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

So far as I am concerned, I could not be accused of having set eyes, or having wished to set eyes, upon Darius‘ wife: on the contrary, I have refused even to listen to those who spoke to me of her beauty.

I do think there should be some regulations on AI.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

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

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.

One of the great attractions of patriotism – it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime. Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.

If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

No public man can be just a little crooked.

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

Politics have no relation to morals.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.

The violence in the Bible is appalling.

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

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

The quality of moral behavior varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.

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.

I believe in the Golden Rule – The Man with the Gold… Rules.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

The time has come for all evangelists to practice full financial disclosure. The world is watching how we walk and how we talk. We must have the highest standards of morality, ethics and integrity if we are to continue to have influence.

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.

Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.

Where do the evils like corruption arise from? It comes from the never-ending greed. The fight for corruption-free ethical society will have to be fought against this greed and replace it with ‚what can I give‘ spirit.