The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
Mark Twain
Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.
Vaclav Havel
States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.
Noam Chomsky
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Plato
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.
Omar N. Bradley
We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.
Edwin Markham
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
Eric Hoffer
Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
George Bernard Shaw
Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.
John Wesley
The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.
Origen
Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.
Felix Adler
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
Matthew Arnold
The moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength. You say there is no religion now. 'Tis like saying in rainy weather, There is no sun, when at that moment we are witnessing one of its superlative effects.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals. Strength enters just as much as the moral element prevails.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ethics thought out is religious thought; ethics felt out is religious feeling, and ethics lived out is the religious life.
William Channing Gannett
That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
William J.H. Boetcker
To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals.
William Penn
If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
Marcus Auregius
The conception of worth, that each person is an end per se, is not a mere abstraction. Our interest in it is not merely academic. Every outcry against the oppression of some people by other people, or against what is morally hideous is the affirmation of the principle that a human being as such is not to be violated. A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered.
Felix Adler - The Ethical Philosophy of Life
Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit.
Freda Adler
When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
Abraham Lincoln
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert Einstein
I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern without any superhuman authority behind it.
True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.
Albert Einstein
Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts.
Heinz Pagels
We ought always to deal justly, not only with those who are just to us, but likewise to those who endeavor to injure us; and this, for fear lest by rendering them evil for evil, we should fall into the same vice.
Hierocles
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.
Jane Addams
Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.
Albert Schweitzer
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
Albert Schweitzer
Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication.
Algernon Black
How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
Barry Lopez
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
Goodness makes greatness truly valuable, and greatness make goodness much more serviceable.
Matthew Henry
Reason guides our attempt to understand the world about us. Both reason and compassion guide our efforts to apply that knowledge ethically, to understand other people, and have ethical relationships with other people.
Molleen Matsumura
You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.
Pearl S. Bucke
The highest form of treason: to do the right thing for the wrong reason.
T.S. Eliot
In this world everything changes except good deeds and bad deeds; these follow you as the shadow follows the body.
Unknown Author
Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.
Buddha
Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.
Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others' happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace anxiety, doubt, disappointment these things are definitely less. In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense.
What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potenial impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness.
Dalai lama
