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

I think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights, and then there are other things – such as traditional marriage – that, I think, express a community’s concern and regard for a particular institution.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn’t care about suffering. I always did.

When we value correct principles, we have truth – a knowledge of things as they are.

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

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

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

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

When in doubt tell the truth.

He who has felt his own ruin will not imagine the case of any to be hopeless; nor will he think them too fallen to be worthy his regard.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

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

Regardless of what society says, we can’t go on much longer in the sea of immorality without judgment coming.

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

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Well, I’ll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt.

All great peoples are conservative.

The good man is the friend of all living things.

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.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‚Is it safe?‘ Expediency asks the question, ‚Is it politic?‘ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‚Is it popular?‘ But Conscience asks the question, ‚Is it right?‘

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin, or to be against God’s will.

I am the son of a freedom fighter, and a son of a freedom fighter automatically imbibes the value of democracy.

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

Within one’s own family, money is not the measure of things, unless the person is an absolute Scrooge. Only the most extreme kind of monster would put a price on everything.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Saints need sinners.

We are all alike, on the inside.

I do think that a minister who can preach a sermon without addressing sinners does not know how to preach.

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

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

The ‚morality of compromise‘ sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

I carry a small sheet of paper in my wallet that has written on it the names of people whose opinions of me matter. To be on that list, you have to love me for my strengths and struggles.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

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

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

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.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

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.

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

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