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

The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

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

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

Better than worshiping gods is obedience to the laws of righteousness.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

God made and governs the world invisibly, and has commanded us to love and worship him and no other God; to honor our parents and masters, and love our neighbours as ourselves; and to be temperate, just, and peaceable, and to be merciful even to brute beasts.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

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

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.

What is permissible is not always honorable.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

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.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they’re looting, if you see a white family it says they’re looking for food.

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

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

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.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

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

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so ‚don’t fuss, dear; get on with it.‘

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish.

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

When one has the feeling of dislike for evil, when one feels tranquil, one finds pleasure in listening to good teachings; when one has these feelings and appreciates them, one is free of fear.

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

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.

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

A home without books is a body without soul.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

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

My son Emilio is running for Congress to continue the fight for social justice.

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.

The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.

In the game of cricket, a hero is a person who respects the game and does not corrupt the game. The one who doesn’t or corrupts the game, they are the villain. They should be punished, and they have been punished in the past.