Quotes about Ethics
Within ten days you will seem a god to those to whom you are now a beast and an ape, if you will return to your principles and the worship of reason.
— Marcus Aurelius
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil.
— Marcus Aurelius
No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.
— Marcus Aurelius
Goodness—what defines a good person. Keep to it in everything you do.
— Marcus Aurelius
And he cares nothing for their praise—men who can't even meet their own standards.
— Marcus Aurelius
Anywhere you can lead your life, you can lead a good one.
— Marcus Aurelius
It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.
— Marcus Aurelius
To the best of my judgment, when I look at the human character I see no virtue placed there to counter justice. But I see one to counter pleasure: self-control.
— Marcus Aurelius
How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavour to flee from another's, which is not.
— Marcus Aurelius
He that sinneth, sinneth unto himself. He that is unjust, hurts himself, in that he makes himself worse than he was before. Not he only that committeth, but he also that omitteth something, is oftentimes unjust.
— Marcus Aurelius
The truly fortunate person has created his own good fortune through good habits of the soul, good intentions, and good actions.
— Marcus Aurelius
Justice: so that you'll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should—and as other people deserve.
— Marcus Aurelius