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

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

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

You’re morally tainted if you don’t treat both the accuser and the accused with fairness and with respect, and with due process.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren’t easy questions.

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

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

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.

Ethics and power are separate.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

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

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.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

No public man can be just a little crooked.

I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‚least advanced‘ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

Honor is the reward of virtue.

You could tell ‚The Handmaid’s Tale‘ from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.

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

We tell lies, yet it is easy to show that lying is immoral.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.

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

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

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

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.

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

Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Morality is of the highest importance – but for us, not for God.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.

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

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.

Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is.

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.

It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it’s perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

I think big business is a terrible thing for the spirit of the country, as our spirit is the best thing about us.

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

Ought we not to ask the media to agree among themselves a voluntary code of conduct, under which they would not say or show anything which could assist the terrorists‘ morale or their cause while the hijack lasted.

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

Trust should be the basis for all our moral training.

We need to have business leaders who live by deep, strong principles.