Ethical Consequences Quotes

It is always man's ideas which drive his actions. This has, at times, resulted in great evil; but as we look around us, we cannot doubt that it has resulted in greater good.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

It costs me never a stab nor squirm / To tread by chance upon a worm. / Aha, my little dear, / I say, Your clan will pay me back one day.

One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue ... Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.

To believe in a just law of cause and effect, carrying with it a punishment or a reward, is to believe in righteousness.

Beings are owners of their actions, heirs of their actions; they originate from their actions, are bound to their actions, have their actions as their refuge. It is action that distinguishes beings as inferior and superior.

Actions have consequences. Ignorance about the nature of those actions does not free a person from responsibility for the consequences. (28)

Every act has both good and evil results. The best we can do is lean to the light.

Because in fantasy perhaps more than in any other genre, the character is rewarded for making the right choices and punished for making the bad. Ask Boromir.

The price of dishonesty is self-destruction.

Does one deserve to have evil done to her by consequence of putting herself where evil can reach her?

If we only look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always find some point in the combination of results by which those actions can be justified: by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most agreeable to us in the present moment.

The severest punishment suffered by a sensitive mind, for injury inflicted upon another, is the consciousness of having done it.

War is a dangerous teacher and physical victory leads often to a moral defeat.

Belief in karma ought to make the life pure, strong, serene and glad. Only our own deeds can hinder us; only our own will can fetter us. Once let men recognize this truth, and the hour of their liberation has struck. Nature cannot enslave the soul that by wisdom has gained power and uses both in love.

In the end ... success or failure will come down to an ethical decision, one on which those now living will be judged for generations to come.

I fear … that morals do not of necessity advance hand in hand with the sciences.

Few things in life can be so appalling as the difference between a dry antiseptic statement of a principle by a well spoken man in a quiet office, and what happens to people when that principle is put into practice.

Evil deeds do not prosper; the slow man catches up with the swift.

There's less of a connection for a lot of people between the technical decisions we make and the ethical ramifications we are responsible for.

As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad- the harm in terms of happiness and suffering- that our thoughts and our actions do to ourselves and others.

No man will revel long in the indulgence of crime.

If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment-as well as the prison.