ethics

"Individuals bearing witness cannot do the work of social movements, but they can break a corrosive and demoralizing silence."

"Having laid the foundations badly, they are unworthy to raise an edifice of virtue and reach the summit of perfection."

"I have no patriotism, for patriotism, as I see it, is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles."

"The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own."

"Respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man, interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern for their errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. Love for his posterity…"

"we forget that the polis, no matter whether old or new, has its own dimensions and its own scale; and if we impose on it solutions corresponding to larger scales, we do it a lot of harm and we destroy…"

"Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem—in my opinion—to characterize our age."

"The act of philosophizing involves the character of the philosopher."

"The main obligation is to amuse yourself."

"Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, im…"

"Paul abstracted this universal principle from the concrete phenomenon in the man Jesus, in whom it was interlaced with Jewish presuppositions and strivings, which as such would have been a hindrance t…"

"Once, the men who ruled the world commissioned great works of art and public statues of bronze and marble to honor war heroes as exemplars of virtue- masculine virtue. Today's warriors are merely memo…"

"e) the phrase, if I may quote, “and for such other purposes as may be hereafter directed by the President” under Section 8 of Presidential Decree No. 910 and “to finance the priority infrastructures d…"

"Morality, if present, should not be relied on because it will be trumped by self interest in most circumstances."

"nfatuation with characters still pervades American classrooms and holds back essential improvement in instruction."

"You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget traditional character assassination; if you say a modern celebrity is …"

"A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security."

"By this characteristically twentieth century retreat from content into form, from meaning into appearance, from ethics into aesthetics, from aqua into unda, I dulled the pain of accusing death, and ha…"

"I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times."

"One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good."