A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

Life is about conduct and how we conduct ourselves. But two wrongs never make a right.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

Justice is truth in action.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

It’s much worse to read criticism about your son than yourself.

Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this ‚hopey changey stuff,‘ she was right: there was nothing there.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‚Is it safe?‘ Expediency asks the question, ‚Is it politic?‘ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‚Is it popular?‘ But Conscience asks the question, ‚Is it right?‘

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.

Especially when you’re at a high level in an organization, criticism can be devastating to an employee. I prefer to praise employees for what they’re doing right, and it tends to lead to them doing more of the same. Not always, but it’s the way I choose to bet.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

If a person is successful, we imagine they are probably also ethical, conscientious and deserving of their good fortune. This obscures the fact that many people who get ahead have done so by doing less than moral actions, which they cleverly disguise from view.

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

I think God gives every one of us our own will, and unfortunately, some people choose to do evil things with it.

Henry Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized and excluded.

The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism.

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise – repeal all compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.

The mainstream is always under attack.

This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

In whatever adulation you get, there’s truth and there’s not truth. And wherever they dog you, and they say it was horrible – there’s truth and there’s not truth. It’s human nature to like to read the adulation more.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

I find it amusing that I’m on the Internet now, because I’ve criticized it, but mainly I’ve criticized it on the basis of, ‚What are you going to do with it?‘

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.