Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

The end justifies the means only when the means used are such as actually bring about the desired and desirable end.

The ends do not justify the means. The means are the ends.

You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today's step is tomorrow's life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You've proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable.

But the nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.

I think in general the ends do not justify the means.

There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another ... All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim.

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue ... Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.

The whole history of man is continuous proof of the maxim that to divest one's methods of ethical concepts means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization.

In the 17 years since I graduated from this great College of Law, I have seen that, for many of us, it becomes increasingly easy to rationalize our actions in the name of expediency when facing difficult decisions-to choose a path where the ends justify the means. I want to ask you to challenge Machiavelli's philosophy. I want to humbly suggest that you be the guardians of a more complicated truth: that the means are as important-and sometimes even more important-than the ends.

Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means.

There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker

I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.

The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.

The only moral that is of any value is that which arises inevitably from the whole cast of the author's mind.

If we only look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always find some point in the combination of results by which those actions can be justified: by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most agreeable to us in the present moment.

You yourself create all your misery, hour after hour, day after day. You think the goal justifies the means, even the vile means. You are wrong: The goal is in the path on which you arrive at it. Every step of today is your life of tomorrow. No great goal can be reached by vile means. That you have proven in every social revolution. The vileness or inhumanity of the path to the goal makes you vile or inhuman, and the goal unattainable.

When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character.

the ends never justify the means because IT never ends.

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others concerned with him have done evil! If a man has acted right, he has done well, though along; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.

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

The result justifies the deed.

My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to him who has the disposal of them.

Any humane and reasonable person must conclude that if the ends, however desireable, are uncertain and the means are horrible and certain, these means must not be employed.