Ethics and Morality

For God hates utterly The bray of bragging tongues.

I, whom proof hath taught of late How so far only should we hate our foes As though we soon might love them, and so far Do a friend service as to one most like Someday to prove our foe, since oftenest men In friendship but a faithless haven find. 3

For kindness begets kindness evermore, But he from whose mind fades the memory Of benefits, noble is he no more. 2

Nobly to live, or else nobly to die, Befits proud birth. 2

Silence gives the proper grace to women.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

Be careful whom you associate with. It is human to imitate the habits of those with whom we interact. We inadvertently adopt their interests, their opinions, their values, and their habit of interpreting events.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

An uneducated person accuses others when he is doing badly; a partly educated person accuses himself; an educated person accuses neither someone else nor himself.

Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.

We are all something, but none of us are everything.

Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.

Everyone needs a sense of shame, but no one needs to feel ashamed.

Though men pride themselves on their great actions, often they are not the result of any great design, but of chance.

It is immoral not to tell.

If you steal from one author it’s plagiarism. If you steal from many, it’s research.

Steal! And egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children, disfigure them and make ’em pass for their own.