An individual’s refusal to carry out the criminal acts of his government sets the stage, in the most effective way possible, for the attempt to demonstrate the criminal nature of these acts.

Abortion is clearly wrong.

I do not pilfer victory.

It is a way to take people’s wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.

I’m always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, then we should treat them with respect.

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

One of the roles of the Presidency is to lead a political party. Having a President in office is usually a huge advantage to a party because it gives the party a mouthpiece and an advocate at the highest level.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

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

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honor.

If I studied all my life, I couldn’t think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.

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

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.

Don’t create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

Organized murder is war, and though we demonstrate against a particular war, the nuclear, or any other kind of war, we have never demonstrated against war.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

I think God’s justice is making wrongs right.

The government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders.

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle-class morality.

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

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

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

All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

To be safe at the expense of the liberty of other people is a difficult equation.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

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.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.

In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

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

I think that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also teaches that pride is a sin, jealousy is a sin, and hate is a sin, evil thoughts are a sin. So I don’t think that homosexuality should be chosen as the overwhelming sin that we are doing today.