Quotes About Morality

The point is, a leader does what he thinks is right, not what he thinks the popular thing is.

Since 1945, when Jesus granted America air superiority, we have bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Granada, Panama, Iraq, Serbia, Somalia, Bosnia, The Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen. And Yemen only because the tenth one was free. How did we inherit this moral obligation of bringing justice to the world via death from above? Are we Zeus? It doesn't make any sense. Our schools are crumbling and we wanna teach everyone else a lesson.

Courage is what makes us do the right thing even when nobody else is doing it.

The closer we draw to God, the less we ask what is permissible ("What can I get away with and still be a Christian?") and the more we think about what pleases God.

HOBBES: Virtue needs some cheaper thrills.

Specifically, I'd like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders, since it's less wasteful.

It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.

We have to harden our hearts and think of the greater good. The plan is, our exposure to her is supposed to purify us. But it seems more like her exposure to us is diminishing her.

No one is responsible, nobody is to blame... Either all are guilty or none...

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?

The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing.

Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright

Man is neither angel nor beast, and unhappily whoever wants to act the angel, acts the beast.

Evil is never done so thoroughly or so well as when it is done with a good conscience.

Make religion attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.

Thus our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is basic principle of morality. (54)

Since [man's] true nature has been lost, anything can become his nature: similarly, true good being lost, anything can become his true good.

A given man lives a life free from boredom by gambling a small sum every day. Give him every morning the money he might win that day, but on condition that he does not gamble, and you will make him unhappy.

Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.

Nie betrieben die Menschen das Böse so umfassend und freudig wie aus religiöser Überzeugung.

We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.

Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast.