Ethical Conviction Quotes

There can be no compromise on moral principles.

There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it - it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it - you don't know what right is and you're not a man.

Right is right though all condemn, and wrong is wrong though all approve.

you must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.

It takes courage to have a conscience when you seem to see others getting something tangible out of not bothering to struggle with the morality of a situation. It gets frustrating and demoralizing. This is precisely where character comes in. All throughout history special people have felt compelled to do what they objectively saw as right and good - even in the face of humiliation or rejection or expulsion or torture or death. That is because they believed that certain ideas were more important than individual well-being.

Courage doesn't always involve physical heroism in the face of death. It doesn't always require giant leaps worthy of celebration. Sometimes, courage is the willingness to speak the truth about what you see and to own what you say.

If I feel strongly, I say it. I know I can do more good by being vocal than by staying quiet. I'd have a whole lot more money if I lied, but I wouldn't enjoy spending it.

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

[On disagreeing with her husband about his slave-holding:] I cannot give my conscience into the keeping of another human being or submit the actions dictated by my conscience to their will.

I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

It seemed incredible to me, that physical courage should be so commonplace and revered, while moral courage . . . is so rare and despised.

Truth is congenial to man. Moral truth is then most consummate when, like beauty, it commends itself without argument. The righteous not only does right, but loves to do right.

I will not yield to any man contrary to what is right, for fear of death, even if I should die at once for not yielding.

It is better to be defeated standing for a high principle than to run by committing subterfuge.

How much evil throughout history could have been avoided had people exercised their moral acuity with convictional courage and said to the powers that be, 'No, I will not. This is wrong, and I don't care if you fire me, shoot me, pass me over for promotion, or call my mother, I will not participate in this unsavory activity.' Wouldn't world history be rewritten if just a few people had actually acted like individual free agents rather than mindless lemmings?

At the beginning of the war, and for some time, the use of colored troops was not contemplated; and how the change of purpose was wrought, I will not now take time to explain. Upon a clear conviction of duty I resolved to turn that element of strength to account; and I am responsible for it to the American people, to the christian world, to history, and on my final account to God.

People standing up and saying, 'This isn't right,' is certainly a quality I admire in specific circumstances. There are people who do that and have a different set of politics, and then I don't necessarily agree with what they're doing and why they're doing it. But the act in and of itself of saying something is wrong and standing up for what they think is right is something I generally admire.

To have a firm persuasion in our work - to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at exactly the same time - is one of the great triumphs of human existence.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world - No, you move.

It doesn't take courage to kill someone,' Klaus said. 'It takes a severe lack of moral stamina.

Stand for right, even if you stand alone.

Anger can be a bitterness that devours your soul while righteous indignation is morally driven, it's ethically driven.

My commitment is not to consistency but to the Truth.

I will not say sorry and be pardoned for doing a godly act.

Did I follow Truth wherever she led, And stand against the whole world for a cause, And uphold the weak against the strong? If I did I would be remembered among men.