Ethics and Morality

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.

Conscience: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

Virtue is the fount whence honour springs.

I count religion but a childish toy,

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork?

The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend.

Mankind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view) consists of its attitudes towards those who are at its mercy: animals.

A fool there was and he made his prayer

I could not dig: I dared not rob:

If any question why we died,

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

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.

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.

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