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

Money can’t buy life.

Juvenile crime is not naturally born in the boy, but is largely due either to the spirit of adventure that is in him, to his own stupidity, or to his lack of discipline, according to the nature of the individual.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

A child wants things to be a certain way. When you get to be an adult, you just understand that some people are good, some are not, and you can’t be naive.

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

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.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

I have long understood that losing always comes with the territory when you wander into the gambling business, just as getting crippled for life is an acceptable risk in the linebacker business. They both are extremely violent sports, and pain is part of the bargain. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

Don’t create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

Action is character.

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.

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

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.

It is right to give every man his due.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

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

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

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

The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

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

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

Effective action is always unjust.

I am a just man.

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

There are many harsh lessons to be learned from the gambling experience, but the harshest one of all is the difference between having Fun and being Smart.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

God has his plans and his reasons. Sometimes we are supposed to go through things so that we learn lessons.

I never had a speech from my father ‚this is what you must do or shouldn’t do‘ but I just learned to be led by example. My father wasn’t perfect.

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.

My childhood did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things.

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

I have nowhere claimed nor even implied that unbelief is a guarantee of good conduct or even an indicator of it.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.

Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.

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

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

There are some loony people in this world!

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

People who think too much before they act don’t act too much.

Thought is the parent of the deed.

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

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

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.

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

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this – that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made – not to understand – but to feel – as crime.

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.