Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

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.

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.

Do FBI Agents and FBI directors have political beliefs? Sure they do. But they’re not supposed to act on them.

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.

A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.

I do not pilfer victory.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

There is a moral obligation that those who have should give to those who don’t.

There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

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

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

Justice… is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

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

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

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.

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.

I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.

States should have the right to enact laws… particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live.

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

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 am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

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.

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

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

If a person is successful, we imagine they are probably also ethical, conscientious and deserving of their good fortune. This obscures the fact that many people who get ahead have done so by doing less than moral actions, which they cleverly disguise from view.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

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.

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

I don’t use Twitter for bad.

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

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.

The thing that alarms me is that there are so many clergymen who say that the so-called ‚new morality‘ is all right. They say we’re living in a new generation; let’s be relevant, let’s change God’s law. Let’s say that adultery is all right under certain circumstances; fornication’s all right under certain circumstances. If it’s ‚meaningful.‘

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

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

He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

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

The rise of capitalist practice and morality brought with it a radical revision of how the commons are treated, and also of how they are conceived.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.