Rick Riordan Quotes

We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What business has he with an evil trade?

People of poor character tend to blame their choices on circumstances. Ethical people make good choices regardless of circumstances. If they make enough good choices, they begin to create better conditions for themselves.

Every man should be considered as having a right to the character which he deserves; that is, to be spoken of according to his actions.

Never accept the blame for what evil people do. We are all responsible for our own actions." She was lecturing him, so she stopped. "Sorry. Hang around with Bran too long, and see if you don’t start passing around the Marrok’s advice as if he were Confucius.

Life is moral responsibility.

A fool is a person who knows the difference between right and wrong, and chooses to do wrong.

There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility.

Man is responsible not only for every deed, but also for every idle word and thought.

Be sure to live up to your reputation for honesty and goodness, because many souls who believe you to be honest and good have placed themselves in your hands.

You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.

A man is not good or bad for one action.

But the culture has failed, almost entirely, in inculcating internal controls on actions that have their origin in authority. For this reason, the latter constitutes a far greater danger to human survival.

Integrity in the Moment of Choice: Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.

A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.

Who is respectable when thinking himself alone and free from observation will be so before the eye of all the world.

Moral courage further demands that you assume the responsibility for your own acts.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.

The act of acting morally is behaving as if everything we do matters.

I value my reputation. I work hard to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Every fault of the mind becomes more conspicuous and more guilty in proportion to the rank of the offender

All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.

To lapse in fulness Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood Is worse in kings than beggars.

A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.

That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.