I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

I believe many people feel like God is mad at them.

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

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

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

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

Laws should be interpreted in a liberal sense so that their intention may be preserved.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

I was tormented with guilt for years and years. In fact, it was so bad that if I didn’t feel wrong, I didn’t feel right!

I don’t have to see a murder in order to condemn murder.

Henry Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized and excluded.

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

I do not pilfer victory.

The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

Of course, animals have to be killed for food or to prevent their doing injury to others or to property. But such killing is too often carried out without regard to the pain inflicted.

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

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

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

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.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

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.

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

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

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

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

Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule.

I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Female psychotic bosses can be particularly devilish. They will tend to mix in a lot of passive aggression, making you feel guilty for all kinds of things.

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

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

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

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

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

You don’t send people to prison on the basis of what other people imagine, or on the basis of media sound bites like ‚shooting an unarmed child,‘ when that ‚child‘ was beating him bloody.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

I always invest my own money in the companies that I create. I don’t believe in the whole thing of just using other people’s money. I don’t think that’s right. I’m not going to ask other people to invest in something if I’m not prepared to do so myself.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

Law, without force, is impotent.

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

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

What I have in common with the character in ‚Truman‘ is this incredible need to please people. I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.