Penn Jillette Quotes

I have to do what's right.

It is a sin not to do what one is capable of doing.

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That's your call

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong.

What is done cannot be effaced. We have to act upon a moral field prepared for us ...

Consciences keep silence more often than they should, that's why laws were created.

Obviously everybody is accountable for their own actions, and everybody has to make judgments based on their own conscience as to whether or not they believe what they were doing is right or wrong.

All sin and all crime comes from the same thing: 'I decided. I decided this was okay.'

I can understand why people are bad.

I have no obligation to deal with slime.

The most disturbing thing, I think, with people that do very morally devious things more and more often is to see that they completely feel that they had no choice in the matter.

Who, I ask you, can take, dare take, on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

I didn't have evil intentions, but I guess I did have power.

In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

I learned one thing in Watergate: I was well-intentioned but rationalized illegal behavior. You cannot live your life other than walking in the truth. Your means are as important as your ends.

Ethical is 'I'll wait and do what's right even in the hardest times and even if I have to give up gains to do it.'

What influences our behavior, and what our level of responsibility is, are very complex issues. And anytime we try to make this simplistic, we don't serve people well.

I find it significant that, even though contemporary philosophy tends towards forms of determinism, in the wider culture people are deeply into naming, shaming and blaming each other. So we haven't lost that sense of conscience.

Every person has free choice. Free to obey or disobey the Natural Laws. Your choice determines the consequences. Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices.

Relationships do not preclude issues of morality.

Evil is important for us to look at, in my opinion, only insofar as it makes us look at our own actions and make us wonder, 'Am I participating in some kind of human evil that I really should stop doing?'