Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

The act of willing this or that, of choosing among various courses of conduct, is central in the realm of ethics.

Is there one specific source that determines correct morality and everybody should follow that? Or should individuals come up with following that source or not depending on their situation?

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

Practical wisdom is what's called for in situations that have a moral dimension to them.

The ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility are not opposites. They are complementary to one another.

I do my research, and if I'm supporting something, then it's because it aligns with me morally and ethically.

The conscience can be a strong guide in life if we allow it.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

There's right and there's wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but you're dead as a beaver hat.

This is not about what party you're part of. This is about right and wrong, ... the conscience of this nation.

The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.

I believe this thought, of the possibility of death - if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong.

I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.

But what of the voice and judgment of conscience? The difficulty is that we have a conscience behind our conscience, an intellectual one behind the moral. ... We can see quite well that our opinions of what is noble and good, our moral valuations, are powerful levers where action is concerned; but we must begin by refining these opinions and independently creating for ourselves new tables of values.

In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the mere fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong.

There is never one absolutely right thing to do. All you can do is honor what you believe, accept the consequences of your own actions, and make the best out of what happens.

Fools measure actions, after they are done, by the event; wise men beforehand, by the rules of reason and right. The former look to the end, to judge of the act. Let me look to the act, and leave the end with God.

I think in the end officials in each country's judicial system will do what they believe is right because if they do something bad to somebody it's on their conscience for the rest of their lives.

Rightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines; and there can no more be two kinds of right action than there can be two kinds of straight lines.

He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.

There being no absolute and universal standard of right, terrorism must be held to be wrong in every case.

Maybe that's because there are so few women lobbyists; if they're there, it's for something they strongly believe in, not just for financial gain.

We must understand that when a society undermines intellectual freedom for its own purposes it is absolutely morally bad, but when it represses biological freedom for its own purposes it is absolutely morally good.