Ethics and Morality

In the end it will not matter to us whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.

Never give in—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—except to convictions of honor and good sense.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.

Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

I have never for one instant seen clearly within myself. How then would you have me judge the deeds of others?

Everybody has the right to express what he thinks. That, of course, lets the crackpots in. But if you cannot tell a crackpot when you see one, then you ought to be taken in.

If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.

Ten thousand bad traits cannot make a single good one any the less good.

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

He who cannot forgive others destroys the bridge over which he himself must pass.

Two important things are to have a genuine interest in people and to be kind to them. Kindness, I’ve discovered, is everything in life.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

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

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

The time is always right to do what is right.

The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.

There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

Say not you know a man entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him.