E. O. Wilson Quotes

There comes a moment in every life when a choice must be made between right and wrong, between good and evil, between light and darkness. These decisions are made in an instant, but with repercussions that last a lifetime.

We can now destroy or we can cherish-the choice is ours.

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.

Many of us, of course, have children, and I think that the type of country that we are going to leave in our wake by rewarding bad behavior... is not a better handoff to the next generation and generation after that.

There will be good and bad, right and wrong. Your reaction of choice, good or bad, has consequences that affect you and those around you.

There's right and there's wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but you're dead as a beaver hat.

Each decision - to kill, to sign a petition, to write a letter, to make a speech, to attack, to lie, to surrender - was made at some point in somebody's day.

Every act has both good and evil results. The best we can do is lean to the light.

There's less of a connection for a lot of people between the technical decisions we make and the ethical ramifications we are responsible for.

I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do, or the fitting thing, it still wasn't the right thing.

I don't think we can sit on the fence anymore. We have to make up our minds. And if one wants to choose the path of darkness, then so be it, but be conscious of what it is you're doing.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret.

The act of willing this or that, of choosing among various courses of conduct, is central in the realm of ethics.

In Survivor and Finder's Fee, it is about what you would do if you could get away with it. Survivor is about your own integrity and where you draw your own ethical and moral lines. There are no rules.

Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

While early childhood experiences may impel, they do not compel. In the end, evil is a matter of choice.

Whether it's trivial or important, every choice has a moral aspect to it to a certain degree.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action?

It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.

We have come to a turning point in the road. If we turn to the right mayhap our children and our children's children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.

Willing or preferring is the same with respect to good and evil, that judging is with respect to truth or falsehood.