To be safe at the expense of the liberty of other people is a difficult equation.

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

Politics have no relation to morals.

If what you have done is unjust, you have not succeeded.

I want to make something that is breathtaking. Of course, you can’t make something that is always breathtaking, or you would never be able to breathe. You would collapse.

The safety of the people shall be the highest law.

The word ‚good‘ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

Abortion is clearly wrong.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

He that’s secure is not safe.

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.

China has to go along with world trends. That’s democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

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

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates.

It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

I guess you could say I devoted myself so strongly to my music that for awhile I forgot about my family. But I only get one set of parents, and I think I forgot about that for a little while.

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

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

It is right to give every man his due.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!

I believe in the transformational power of liberty. I believe that the free Iraq is in this nation’s interests. I believe a free Afghanistan is in this nation’s interest.

Younger scientists are extremely sensitive to the moral implications of all they do.

I think it does Discworld good if I don’t write about it all the time: sometimes you have to get it out of your system.

When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

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

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Fame is like caviar, you know – it’s good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal.

These days there is a lot of poverty in the world, and that’s a scandal when we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone. We all have to think about how we can become a little poorer.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

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.

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

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

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

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

I don’t think any country is perfect. It’s our responsibility to do the best we can do to change the things we don’t like. I think that’s part of social responsibility, and everybody is going to do that in their own way.

The average family spends 30 hours in front of a television, and they say they don’t have the time to have a balanced, integrated life.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

When you step on the brakes your life is in your foot’s hands.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

Do I wear a helmet? Ugh. I do when I’m riding through a precarious part of town, meaning Midtown traffic. But when I’m riding on secure protected lanes or on the paths that run along the Hudson or through Central Park – no, I don’t wear the dreaded helmet then.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches.