Wynton Marsalis Quotes

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

I never condemn wrongdoing in any area.

If Truth is taken away from us, then Right and Wrong are taken from us as well. If we don't know Right and Wrong, then we can't, we won't control ourselves, but will look to someone else to bring order through brute force and raw power. We will be controlled by a tyrant, and we will no longer be free.

Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.

The very essence of our civilization is that we give a paramount place to morality in all our affairs, public or private.

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

Morality is always higher than law and we cannot forget this ever.

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.'

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.

At times, morality can be dismissed as a matter of personal conscience, no matter how widespread its acceptance. Ethics, on the other hand, arises from societal or group commitments to principia of behavior.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

We should reserve the notion of 'morality' for the ways in which we can affect one another's experience for better or worse. Some people use the term 'morality' differently, of course, but I think we have a scientific responsibility to focus the conversation so as to make it most useful.

I try not to do anything that's immoral.

The ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility are not opposites. They are complementary to one another.

The fundamental basis of ethics must be chosen in some non-scientific way.

Morality is a social necessity

Ethics are pre-determined and a matter of discovery, not a evolved concept.

Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

The feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom.

Morality, when vigorously alive, sees farther than intellect, and provides unconsciously for intellectual difficulties.

Every act of every man is a moral act, to be tested by moral, and not by economic criteria.

Morality is the thing upon which your friends smile, and immorality is the thing upon which they frown

One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.