Don’t lie about anything, ever. Lying leads to Hell.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

Evil is whatever distracts.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

I’m not trying to get myself up a notch on the ladder by shoving somebody else down on the ladder, whether it’s a candidate or the president of the United States or anybody else. I just don’t believe that’s the way one oughta campaign, I’ve never done that.

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

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.

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

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

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

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

I don’t use Twitter for bad.

Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blamable.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.

Richard Nixon was an evil man – evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency.

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

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

I exaggerate when I’m angry, but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.

Violence is both unavoidable and unjustifiable.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

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.

I don’t believe in endorsing a product that you don’t want to endorse.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

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

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.

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

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

I’ve laid my friends bare.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

No one ever doubts that I mean what I say. The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value.

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.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

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.

You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

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

Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

Many religious confessions share common values. They teach that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

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.