People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.

To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

If you’re in favour of any policy – reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever – if you’re at least minimally moral, it’s because you think it’s somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.

Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Make sure of your commitment to Jesus Christ, and seek to follow Him every day. Don’t be swayed by the false values and goals of this world, but put Christ and His will first in everything you do.

Fear is the mother of morality.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

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.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

Because of lack of moral principle, human life becomes worthless. Moral principle, truthfulness, is a key factor. If we lose that, then there is no future.

No other country in the world does what we do. On every issue, the world turns to us, not simply because of the size of our economy or our military might – but because of the ideals we stand for, and the burdens we bear to advance them.

At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.

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

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.

My parents taught me service – not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.

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.

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.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.

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.

Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.

It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

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.

When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

I do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion.

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

It’s honestly true that money means nothing to me.

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?

Many religious confessions share common values. They teach that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football.

The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

The just is close to the people’s heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

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.

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

The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.