Henry Adams Quotes

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

At the end of the day, if there are truly ethical considerations, those have to override scientific considerations.

I don't want to do anything that violates my own personal code of ethics and morals.

There is nothing politically right that is morally wrong.

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.

It didn't occur to me to go into something that didn't have an ethical return for me.

Ethics is a fluid term ...It's the standards by which a civilized society lives.

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

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

What are the values that give meaning? What is the line that you will never cross, because on this side you're good, and on this side you're evil.

Morality must relate, at some level, to the well-being of conscious creatures. If there are more and less effective ways for us to seek happiness and to avoid misery in this world - and there clearly are - then there are right and wrong answers to questions of morality.

Really, no-one is bad except for serial killers and dictators.

In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.

You're either a person with a conscience, or you're not. I think I've got quite a fine conscience.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that morality is not just a matter of opinion.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.

I come from a highly moral family. I was very much taught what was right and wrong, and in my perception of things, I did something that was very wrong. To know that, and to then be so publicly exposed, was very hard.

I'm just doing what my conscience asks me to do.

And sometimes you have to go above the written law, I believe.

What a man calls his 'conscience' is merely the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction after too much wine or love.

It may not have the virtuous ring of the golden rule, but the maxim 'never say never' is one of the most important in ethics.

There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.

Commerce is against morality. Morality is going to lose every time.