Aldo Leopold Quotes

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

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

An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.

Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved. But among ends that can be achieved our choice must be decided by other than purely scientific considerations. If a man were to say, "I hate the human race, and I think it would be a good thing if it were exterminated," we could say, "Well, my dear sir, let us begin the process with you." But this is hardly argument, and no amount of science could prove such a man mistaken.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.

Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.

The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

What is morality, she asked. Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.

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

You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.

At the end of the day, if there are truly ethical considerations, those have to override scientific considerations.

I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.

There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition. There are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it.

A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.

It's immoral to steal, but you can take things.

In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything.

The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings.

Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

If one must do a wrong, it's best to do it pursuing power-otherwise, let's have virtue.

A moral choice in its basic terms appears to be a choice that favors survival: a choice made in favor of life.

[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists . . . an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.

I have never made it a consideration whether the subject was popular or unpopular, but whether it was right or wrong; for that which is right will become popular, and that which is wrong, though by mistake it may obtain the cry or fashion of the day, will soon lose the power of delusion, and sink into disesteem.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.