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

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

I have considered voting Conservative because I am so against the Labour party.

Life is anything but predictable.

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

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.

International summits and organisations like WTO take decisions, which will bind us, and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken.

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

I don’t really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

For I can raise no money by vile means.

Everybody thinks that when new technologies come along that they’re transparent and you can just do your job well on it. But technologies always import a whole new set of values with them.

Every sin is the result of a collaboration.

Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.

I give opinions, not advice.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without.

The object of the superior man is truth.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

As I have done in every election since I started voting so many years ago, I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.

Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Even if you’re happy with the life you’ve chosen, you’re still curious about the other options.

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.

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

I’ve never gone wrong trusting my gut.

Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

If you want someone to say, ‚She’s so sweet, and she’s so cute, and, honey, point your foot,‘ that’s not my school. You can go to the YMCA and have a nobody teach your kid if that’s what you want to hear.

I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.

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

I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

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.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

Trust should be the basis for all our moral training.

It’s getting harder to make decisions to just want to do something to work… I’m trying to find things that are extremely challenging or mean something to me deeply.

The humanists‘ replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you’ll either save yourself or you’ll be immortal. Of course, that’s a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there’s no ethical progress whatsoever.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

I do not think psychoanalysis has a scientific basis. If we can’t explain why a cockroach decides to turn left, how can we explain why a human being decides to do something?

If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.

There’s strong data that, within companies, the No. 1 reason for ethical violations is the pressure to meet expectations, sometimes unrealistic expectations.

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

When you get angry, your options narrow.

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

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