There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.

Justice… is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

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.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

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

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

Morality is of the highest importance – but for us, not for God.

I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.

The just is close to the people’s heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.

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

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.

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.

Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren’t easy questions.

To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.

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

Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

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

If a person is successful, we imagine they are probably also ethical, conscientious and deserving of their good fortune. This obscures the fact that many people who get ahead have done so by doing less than moral actions, which they cleverly disguise from view.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom – along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.

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

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

Saints need sinners.

I do think there should be some regulations on AI.

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?‘

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime. Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.

Sin is geographical.

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.

It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.

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

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

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.

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

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the law of nature and of nations.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

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

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

I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.