Theodore Parker Quotes

When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.

It doesn't make sense to have to do the wrong thing in order to do the right thing.

The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

Of two evils, choose neither.

Sometimes the right thing gets done for the wrong reason and sometimes, unfortunately, the wrong thing gets done for the right reason.

One of the key issues will be personal honour vs. the good of the many, and unforeseen consequences.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be "damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

The ends do not always justify the means

I realized early that unless you're willing to kill the innocent, you can't win.

I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do, or the fitting thing, it still wasn't the right thing.

All of us have moments in our lives when we have to choose between what we know is right and what we feel obligated to do.

The devil is compromise.

We live in a world where everyone thinks they do the right thing, so they are entitled to do the wrong thing. So ends can justify the means.

Everyone spends their lives trying to balance their world between good and evil.

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.

In life, everybody faces choices between doing what's popular, easy, and wrong vs. doing what's lonely, difficult, and right. These decisions intensify when you run a company, because the consequences get magnified 1,000 fold. As in life, the excuses for CEOs making the wrong choice are always plentiful.

White lies always introduce others of a darker complexion.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.

The hardest decisions in life are not between good and bad or right and wrong, but between two goods or two rights.

We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil, that good may come.

We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

There are times when lying is the most sacred of duties.

An untruth must be spoken, where need requires. For whether men lie, or say true, it is with one and the same object. Men lie, because they think to gain by deceiving others; and speak the truth, because they expect to get something by their true speaking, and to be trusted afterwards in more important matters. Thus, though their conduct is so opposite, the end of both is alike. If there were no gain to be got, your true-speaking man would tell untruths as much as your liar, and your liar would tell the truth as much as your true-speaking man.