No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

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

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

The middle class is so funny, it’s the class I know best, and it’s the class where you find the most pretension, so that’s what makes the middle classes so funny.

Every sin is the result of a collaboration.

In France there are, I think, less than one per cent of people who are too skinny.

No one can say, ‚I have dropped out – I am no longer in the system.‘ When you’re in prison, you’re even closer to the system: you feel it more, and you might be in there for whatever reason. You don’t transform the system as an absolute thing.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

If you’re too free, you’re like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Someday, the capitalist system will disappear in the United States, because no social class system has been eternal. One day, class societies will disappear.

The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Governments don’t control people like they used to.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

I think you have a moral responsibility when you’ve been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently.

Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime. Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.

If he invited you out, he’s got to pay.

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.

People like me were supposed to be into exclusivity, unapproachable. That’s what I hate most. I think it’s very demode.

The society in ‚The Handmaid’s Tale‘ is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated.

Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.

Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

We moralize among ruins.

For a war to be just three conditions are necessary – public authority, just cause, right motive.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people – and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.

I am a just man.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

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

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.

A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.