Ethics and Morality

Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But Conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’

If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made.

So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.

I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.

There is an imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it. This imperative is Categorical … This imperative may be called that of Morality.

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more seriously reflection concentrates upon them: the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me.

Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will.

Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

Honesty is praised and left to shiver.

All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons.

They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.

A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess success.

Chastity—the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.

The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.