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?‘

I’m the proof – you can’t throw away tradition.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.

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

Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.

As we know, while our species remains alive, everybody has the sacred duty to be optimistic. Ethically, any other behaviour wouldn’t be admissible.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

And whether you’re an honest man, or whether you’re a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

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.

If you want to have sustained joy, you have to not only make sure that you think right, but you also have to make decisions now that are going to guarantee some joy in the future.

All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.

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

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.

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

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn’t any good reason to refer to it.

To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism. So I distance myself, because I feel everything.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Morality is a private and costly luxury.

I disagree with any policy that would turn America’s back on people who are fleeing harm. I frankly believe that it is contrary to everything that we have symbolically and actually said we stand for.

Abortion is clearly wrong.

We need an adult in the White House. When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can’t just pop off or lash out irrationally.

When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit money when there is no good money.

I always wanted to do things right and represent myself as somebody that took the art serious and someone that took the business serious also, so I had time to weigh the options and figure it out and do my best to create the situation that was ideal.

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honor.

If you want to be a good strategist, you can never just go off a principle you read in a book. You need to adapt what you do to the situation; no rule of thumb is true all the time.

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

The Trump phenomenon is in large part a reaction of Middle America to attacks on its values by intellectual and academic communities. There are other reasons, but this is a significant one.

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

This way of life is worth defending.

My principles are more important than the money or my title.

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

Honor is the reward of virtue.

I don’t think you ever really know what all you’re doing, so you have to act on faith.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

All great peoples are conservative.

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?

I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you’re headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That’s what the American people called for in November, and that’s what we intend to deliver.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

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.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

If someone lies, well, you had a choice to trust that person or not. I think the way my father raised me, well, he trusted everybody. And that worked for him.

Fear is the mother of morality.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

People want to go out and travel around and meet cool people. I could just go live in Vermont, but is that what I really want?

Morality is contraband in war.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

The government’s job is good governance for everybody. My government will make policies; if you fit into it, come on board, or stay where you are. My job is not to spoon-feed anyone.

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.