Ernest Bevin Quotes

There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.

I follow my conscience - and this is upsetting to some people, but I maintain the conscience is going to be the only thing between us and communication in the future.

I was only following orders," the Mayor mocks. "The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time.

It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.

Here in St. Cloud’s,” Dr. Larch wrote, “ I have been given the choice of playing God or leaving practically everything up to chance. It is my experience that practically everything is left up to chance much of the time; men who believe in good and evil, and who believe that good should win, should watch for those moments when it is possible to play God – we should seize those moments. There won’t be may

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

I don't tend to think in terms of a moral authority - be a good boy, do good things - more in terms of what feels right.

You must always do what you feel is right.

I do what I think is right.

If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can.

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice.

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.

You just have to do what you know is right.

Go by your own conscience.

I have always tried my best to do what I thought was the right thing at the time.

No, moral conscience is one thing, the law is another. We have to hold onto this difference.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

It's easy to get into the grey zone [of ethics].

I have learned that a clear conscience, or a legal opinion, does not make you ethically bullet proof.

What we call “morals” is simply blind obedience to words of command.