Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

I wanted to play around with the format, really tear it to pieces and shake it up. For example, if Mitch saves someone from drowning, and that person then goes out and releases a virus that kills a million people. Imagine the moral implications of that.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

In this life, it's not hard to do wrong.

If we say yes to something we believe is wrong now, what guarantee is there that the wrong will not be further exacerbated down the line?

doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right

Even if trolley problems were a realistic concern for AVs, it is not clear what, if anything, regulators or companies developing AVs should do about them. The trolley problem is an intensely debated thought experiment precisely because there isn't a consensus on what should be done.

There's always got to be room for what you might call benign corruption. Nobody blames a man who steals food to feed his starving children, but on the other hand, somebody who picks up a badge and takes an oath to serve and protect; we do expect a certain level of essential honesty.

not keeping a promise is the same as lying!

The value of a promise is the cost to you of keeping your word.

To Jack, there was nothing more powerful than a promise made over a handshake. He would have died ー literally chosen death ー before breaking his word.

When one promise jostles another, one of 'em isn't a promise.

An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving.

You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today's step is tomorrow's life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You've proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable.

Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience.

One of the drawbacks to life is that it contains moments when one is compelled to tell the truth.

Undertake not what you cannot perform, but be careful to keep your promise.

The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.

Not to be cowardly when it comes to our own actions! Not to leave them in the lurch!--The sting of conscience is indecent.

Suppose that I see a hungry child in the street, and I am able to offer the child some food. Am I morally culpable if I refuse to do so? Am I morally culpable if I choose not to do what I easily can about the fact that 1000 children die every hour from easily preventable disease, according to UNICEF? Or the fact that the government of my own "free and open society" is engaged in monstrous crimes that can easily be mitigated or terminated? Is it even possible to debate these questions?

With a great moral issue involved, neutrality does not serve righteousness; for to be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong.

Every unjust act, even committed for the sake of a just cause, carries its curse with it.

A sin takes on a new and real terror when there seems a chance that it is going to be found out.

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.

Far too many people make promises they can never keep. They may have the best intentions in the world to keep their promise-but if they have not made a plan to keep it, they will not be able to do it.

An oath that is not to bee made is not to be kept.