Ethics and Morality

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

One mustn't criticize other people on grounds where he can't stand perpendicular himself

If we only had some God in the country's laws, instead of being in such a sweat to get him into the Constitution, it would be better all around .

We can secure other people's approval, if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.

I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one.

A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.

I know all those people. I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the whole lot of them.

A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic compliment.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read-

Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky. It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.

Of the demonstrably wise there are but two: those who commit suicide, & those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied with drink.

All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.

Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest .

I found out that I was a Christian for revenue only and I could not bear the thought of that, it was so ignoble.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.

We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.

A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.

There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency - and a virtue, and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency - and a vice.

Simplified spelling is all right, but, like chastity, you can carry it too far.

The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way.

Principles aren't of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.