Ethical Principle Quotes

No man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man-or group or society or government-has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense.

Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.

Golden Rule”: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.

Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual.

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.

Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.

My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to him who has the disposal of them.

Sentiment never was and never can be a guarantee for justice.

Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.

Do not unto others that which is hateful unto thee.

This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them.

Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.

The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.

The fullest application of ahimsa does make life impossible.

All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.

Don't do to someone else what you wouldn't want done to you.

[the virtues] cannot exist without Prudence. A proof of this is that everyone, even at the present day, in defining Virtue, after saying what disposition it is [i.e. moral virtue] and specifying the things with which it is concerned, adds that it is a disposition determined by the right principle; and the right principle is the principle determined by Prudence.

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.

Our thoughts and actions must in no way be determined by the approval or disapproval of our time, but by the binding obligation to a truth which we have recognized.

If you can do no good, at least do no harm.

As the light of morning strikes now one peak and then another, some being illuminated while others are in the shadow, so the light of the essential moral principle shines now upon one duty and then upon another, while others are in the shadow.

Love's creed is separate from all religions.

The golden rule is to act fearlessly upon what one believes to be right.

Ahimsa is one of the world's great principles, which no power on earth can wipe out.

The ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good; and when one's acting in a certain manner has this tendency he has a right thus to act.