Tana French Quotes

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

There was no other God, religion, or lawful magistracy, than conscience, which teaches all men the precepts of Justice, to do no injury, to live honestly, and give everyone his due.

The very essence of our civilization is that we give a paramount place to morality in all our affairs, public or private.

Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.

Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules

Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson.

Those who are most moral are farthest from the problem.

Subordination to morality can be slavish or vain or self- interested or resigned or gloomily enthusiastic or thoughtless or an act of despair, just as subordination to a prince can be: in itself it is nothing moral.

Whenever one refuses to admit such a self-evident truth, for instance, as that it is wrong to steal, don't argue with him-search him; the reason may be found in his pocket.

We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.

Morals - all correct moral laws - derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.

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.

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

For many people, morality means a set of rules governing the disposition on one's genital organs; or a set of injunctions against lying, stealing, or killing except when such acts are sanctioned by church or state.

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

We Indians are Latin America's moral reserve. We act according to a universal law that consists of three basic principles: do not steal, do not lie and do not be idle.

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

I should not deal with things that aren't founded on ethical principles, because that's not who I am as a human being.

We've lost our sense of ethics; we live in a world of small-mindedness, of gratification without happiness and actions without meaning.

Very rarely do people make big compromises with their integrity. Almost every compromise is a small one that is easily justified. The downhill slide is usually a result of many little compromises.

The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That's how most people thought.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition. There are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it.