Violence is both unavoidable and unjustifiable.

Nothing good ever comes of violence.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

Well before September 11, it was understood that with modern technology, the rich and powerful will lose their near monopoly of the means of violence and can expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.

There ought to be one day – just one – when there is open season on senators.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

I know black people love the idea that we finally have a beautiful, good-looking black president. But if he is doing awful things to us, we should wake up.

Nationalism has a way of oppressing others.

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

Peace can only thrive when the climate is right. We remain open to bilateral dialogue with Pakistan on all outstanding issues in an environment free from terrorism and violence.

Anti-Semitism is real in this country.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

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

It’s not that every single thing that happens on Facebook is gonna be good. This is humanity. People use tools for good and bad, but I think that we have a clear responsibility to make sure that the good is amplified and to do everything we can to mitigate the bad.

If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants.

Bigotry is the sacred disease.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.

The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.

Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

For I can raise no money by vile means.

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

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.

It’s a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.

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

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

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

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Where do the evils like corruption arise from? It comes from the never-ending greed. The fight for corruption-free ethical society will have to be fought against this greed and replace it with ‚what can I give‘ spirit.

We all have done something unethical.

What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

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

The notion that we have even one single veteran living on the streets should be just considered a travesty to all of us.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

In countries where innocent people are dying, the leaders are following their blood rather than their brains.

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

Giving a poor person money keeps them poor.

Freedom is not enough.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without.

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

We need to recognize that the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation. The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color. Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country.

The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent.

Colombia has been the leading western recipient of U.S. arms and training as violence has grown through the ’90s.

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

It’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings.

Conscience is a man’s compass.

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists.