Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Morally, a philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treachery.

Life is moral responsibility.

The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.

Genius does not excuse evil.

You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'

I do feel a responsibility to address things that are problematic, but I don't have to go out of my way to do that.

He [man] knows that when he is not what he ought to be; when he does what he ought not to do; or omits what he ought to do, he is chargeable with sin

There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility.

The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists but of two points--his duty God, which every man must feel; and, with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by.

True freedom is not the liberty to do anything we please, but the liberty to do what we ought; and it is genuine liberty because doing what we ought now pleases us

What a massive responsibility, being a moral creature

I sincerely believe that we not only have the right to know what is good and what is evil; we have the duty to acquire that knowledge if we hope to assume responsibility for our own lives and those of our children. Only by knowing the truth can we be set free.

He deserves praise who does not what he may, but what he ought.

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

While some of them acknowledge the obligation of natural morality in their mode of conducting their cases, and preserve their individual character as gentlemen, there are others who acknowledge no law, human or divine, but the law of Scotland.

I was taught that a lawyer was supposed to be a custodian of the community's legal and ethical sense.

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

I have learned that a clear conscience, or a legal opinion, does not make you ethically bullet proof.

Ethics is not a job that anyone turns to naturally, but every public agency has to have it.

To fight evil one must also recognize one's own responsibility. The values for which we stand must be expressed in the way we think of, and how we deal with, our fellow humans.

Individual consciences are fine but individual consciences have to be made manifest.

The driving force of any profession includes not only the special knowledge, skills and standards that it demands, but the duty to serve responsibly, selflessly and wisely, and to establish an inherently ethical relationship between professionals and society.

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

Duty is but a pot. It holds whatever is put in it, from the greatest evil to the greatest good.

One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.