Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Every lawsuit results from somebody doing something wrong. If everybody did right, we wouldn't need laws.

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

Civilization rests on the fact that most people do the right thing most of the time.

You always gotta do the right thing: you never know who's watching.

Integrity means being whole, unbroken, undivided. It describes a person who has united the different parts of his or her personality, so there is no longer a split in the soul ... For the person of integrity, life may not be easy but it is simple: Figure out what is right and do it. All other considerations come in second.

We do the right thing not to please people but because it's the only logically reasonable thing to do, as long as we are being honest with ourselves - even if we are the only ones.

The Superior Man is aware of Righteousness, the inferior man is aware of advantage.

Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.

You must do right before you feel good.

We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.

must acknowledge, that to act properly is much more valuable than to think justly or reason acutely.

While one is asleep one cannot do anything that is good. Virtue is impossible in unconsciousness, only sin is possible. Unconsciousness is the source of sin.

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.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

Doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he behaves himself.

Anyone can see that intending and not acting when we can is not really intending, and loving and not doing good when we can is not really loving.

ATHENA: You wish to be called righteous rather than act right. [...] I say, wrong must not win by technicalities.

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.

Do the right thing, and then do the next right thing, and that will lead you to the next right thing after that.

Most men are not wicked... They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers.

Half at least of all morality is negative and consists in keeping out of mischief. The lords prayer is less than 50 words long, and 6 of those words are devoted to asking god not to lead us into temptation.

Behavior influences consciousness. Right behavior means right consciousness. Our attitude here and now influences the entire environment: our words, actions, ways of holding and moving ourselves, they all influence what happens around us and inside us. The actions of every instant, every day, must be right...Every gesture is important. How we eat, how we put on our clothes, how we wash ourselves, how we go to the toilet, how we put our things away, how we act with other people, family, wife, work - how we are: totally, in every single gesture.

It would be a great thing if people could be brought to realize that they can never add to the sum of their happiness by doing wrong.

Here is the point about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true - that religion has caused innumerate people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow.