Richard Whately Quotes

If you are following the dharma no matter what you do it is moral.

Without integrity and conscience we lose our freedom.

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

What is morality, she asked. Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.

Seeking the good is not primarily about rules and commandments.

Opinions upon moral questions are more often the expression of strongly felt expediency than of careful ethical reasoning

It's better to die doing good than to live doing evil.

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.

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

Do what's right and you'll please some of the people and astound the rest.

You can't be right by doing wrong; you can't be wrong by doing right.

We talk so much about one's rights... so little about what is actually right.

Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.

All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

In day-to-day life, you have stimulus to behave unethically, but in the long term, it always pays off to be ethical.

When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder.

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

Morality and expediency coincide more than the cynics allow.

Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

A book must have moral purpose to be any good. Why, I don't know.

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

All effective actions require the passport of morality.