Best Ethics Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“Some people don't apply a stop loss, so there's no limit to how far their character can fall.”

“Whoever reads and listens to this book ethics, he never faces defeat even from Indra”

“Justice isn’t a headline—it’s how we show up for each other when no one’s watching.”

“Naskarnomics (Sonnet 2641)”

“How to win in life:”

“Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around, Karma exists, chickens do come home to roost, and as my mother, Phyllis, liked to say, “There is always a day of reckoning.” The good among the great understand that every choice we make adds to the strength or weakness of our spirits—ourselves, or to use an old fashioned word for the same idea, our souls. That is every human’s life work: to construct an identity bit by bit, to walk a path step by step, to live a life that is worthy of something higher, lighter, more fulfilling, and maybe even everlasting.”

“And so I pray I am today as honest”

“Good Bones”

“Speak with caution. Even if someone forgives harsh words you've spoken, they may be too hurt to ever forget them. Don't leave a legacy of pain and regret of things you never should have said.”

“Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years.”

“Lieutenant Linh said, “Thank you for this valuable information, it gives us an opportunity to take counter-measures to nullify the American attack! I have here, over a thousand young and inexperienced soldiers who are a bit fearful of the Americans. Our young soldiers are asking questions like, “Will an old carbine bullet kill a big American?” and “Would a bullet actually kill a big black American?” He went on to say, “I reassure them that their bullets will kill Americans if they strike at the right spot!” Later on, he was to say, “Four days later, the Americans came. We watched with heavy hearts as their helicopters endlessly were landing men.”

“We built machines to answer every question, but forgot to ask what it means to be human.”

“Let the systems be efficient. Let us be kind.”

“There might be virtuous ways to love nature, but the love of nature is no guarantor of virtue.”

“Character is long-standing habit.”

“The currency of the nursery is touch, and Bartholomew spends freely, hugging and tickling and tousling hair. 'The code says we should respect each other,' the small ones cry. 'The code says that we mustn't feed ourselves until we see that all the limbless ones have somebody to feed them. The code says that every person's work is good, and none is better than any other.' The small ones recite their lessons, and he listens.”

“Those who act in the dark become even more unsure and uncertain of themselves. But the same people, when honor, praise, or approval is expressed by external signs, clearly become confident in their actions, for their spirit and judgment are strengthened by these signs.”

“When we seek knowledge, we also must accept responsibility. Not just for how to use the knowledge, but for how the knowledge might change us.”

“We may well have numerous failed states in the Muslim world, I’ll give you that. But what we don’t have are failed societies. That’s a phenomenon that we only see in the West. Our societies are functioning, even if our governments are not, even if we don’t have state-imposed order. We still have functioning societies, we still have moral societies. Our people are still following a moral code. Can’t say the same about the West. And it’s interesting to me that the West uses this as an insult to the Muslim world, ‘‘Oh, look you have failed states’’. First of all, in most instances, you collapsed our states. And second of all, we can still function without them. Can you?”

“And what we say - that what He willeth is right and what He doth not not will is wrong, is not so to be understood, as if, should God will something inconsistent, it would be right because He willed it. For it does not follow that if God would lie it would be right to lie, but rather that he were not God.”

“He who stands by his heart has God in him. Our conscience is what unites us with God.”

“Each mind conceives god in its own way. There may be as many variation of the god figure as there are people in the world”

“All religions are man-made; God has not yet revealed himself beyond doubt to anybody.”

“Every man who begets a free act projects his personality into the infinite. If he gives a poor man a penny grudgingly, that penny pierces the poor man’s hand, falls, pierces the earth, bores holes in suns, crosses the firmament and compromises the universe. If he begets an impure act, he perhaps darkens thousands of hearts whom he does not know, who are mysteriously linked to him, and who need this man to be pure as a traveler dying of thirst needs the Gospel’s draught of water. A charitable act, an impulse of real pity sings for him the divine praises, from the time of Adam to the end of the ages; it cures the sick, consoles those in despair, calms storms, ransoms prisoners, converts the infidel and protects mankind”

“Nobody can turn you into a slave unless you allow them. Nobody can make you afraid of anything, unless you allow them. Nobody can tell you to do something wrong, unless you allow them. God never created you to be a slave, man did. God never created division or set up any borders between brothers, man did. God never told you hurt or kill another, man did. So why is man your god, and not the Creator?”

“About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?”

“Whoever gains the power to make you betray reason gains the power to make you betray conscience.”

“Progress without humility is just destruction in disguise.”

“A lie repeated may build power, but it cannot build trust.”

“Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.”