"An act has no ethical quality whatever..." - Quote by William James
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
More by William James
“An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort of a mental total.”
“Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.”
“We are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately extreme, but we shrink from advising others to follow the example.”
More on Ethics
“The test to which all methods of treatment are finally brought is whether they are lucrative to doctors or not.”
“What the individual can do is to give a fine example, and to have the courage to uphold ethical values .. in a society of cynics.”
“Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.”
More on Choice
“Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”
“Nay! Alas for us all! And for all that walk in the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed [...] for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlórien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale.”
“We are not what happened to us, we are what we wish to become.”