E. O. Wilson Quotes

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

There's no question that as science, knowledge and technology advance, that we will attempt to do more significant things. And there's no question that we will always have to temper those things with ethics.

If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy.

That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

Morality is the thing upon which your friends smile, and immorality is the thing upon which they frown

It is better to will the good than to know the truth.

Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.

Morality is the Science of harmonious relations between intelligent beings.

Ethics is inescapable.

Universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones.

Ethics, as has been well said, are the finest fruits of humanity, but they are not its roots

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions.

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

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It's really no more inflammatory than that.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

In some countries the effort to debate and legislate the social and ethical implications of the new biological and genetic technologies often precedes their application. This observation confirms the realization by the public that biotechnological applications will interfere with all the basic and profound value systems considered by every human being

It is not true that people of high principle are ill-suited for politics.

All effective actions require the passport of morality.

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

Virtue is the first title of nobility.

The whole history of man is continuous proof of the maxim that to divest one's methods of ethical concepts means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization.

moral, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.