morality quotes

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

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.

Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

I think where political issues invade moral situations, spiritual leaders have to speak out.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, exists when one goes against one’s conscience. To listen to and obey it means, in fact, to decide in face of what is perceived as good or evil. And on this decision pivots the goodness or malice of our action.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

I don’t have to see a murder in order to condemn murder.

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

We’re all sinners. Everybody you meet all over the world is a sinner.

I think that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also teaches that pride is a sin, jealousy is a sin, and hate is a sin, evil thoughts are a sin. So I don’t think that homosexuality should be chosen as the overwhelming sin that we are doing today.

I’ve been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that’s kind of a religious belief. I mean, it’s at least a moral belief.

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

I think God’s justice is making wrongs right.

Effective action is always unjust.

Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

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

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

The time has come for all evangelists to practice full financial disclosure. The world is watching how we walk and how we talk. We must have the highest standards of morality, ethics and integrity if we are to continue to have influence.

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants.

Sin is geographical.

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.

The thing that alarms me is that there are so many clergymen who say that the so-called ‚new morality‘ is all right. They say we’re living in a new generation; let’s be relevant, let’s change God’s law. Let’s say that adultery is all right under certain circumstances; fornication’s all right under certain circumstances. If it’s ‚meaningful.‘

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

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.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

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

Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.

Justice is truth in action.

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

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

Sometimes we look at gay being a bigger sin than being proud or not telling the truth. I don’t think God categorizes sins.

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

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

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

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

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.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

We moralize among ruins.

Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people – more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true – in certain rare, isolated cases.

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?‘

Abortion is clearly wrong.

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.