C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Ethics
Ethics, as has been well said, are the finest fruits of humanity, but they are not its roots.
Ethics may be defined as the obligations of morality.
Ethics is the doctrine of manners, or science of philosophy, which teaches men their duty and the springs and principles of human conduct.
Art itself is essentially ethical; because every true work of art must have a beauty or grandeur of some kind, and beauty and grandeur cannot be comprehended by the beholder except through the moral sentiment. The eye is only a witness; it is not a judge. The mind judges what the eye reports to it; therefore, whatever elevates the moral sentiment to the contemplation of beauty and grandeur is in itself ethical.
The modern Gamaliel should teach ethics. Ethics is the science of human duty. Arithmetic tells man how to count his money; ethics how he should acquire it, whether by honesty or fraud. Geography is a map of the world; ethics is a beautiful map of duty. This ethics is not Christianity, it is not even religion; but it is the sister of religion, because the path of duty is in full harmony, as to quality and direction, with the path of God.