Quotes About Morality

To be right is more honorable than to be law abiding.

Under a goverment which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison

I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

The fate of the country... does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

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

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature, which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.

A lawyer's truth is not Truth. It is consistency, or consistent expediency

As for Doing-good...I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.

By turns our purity inspires and our impurity casts us down.

La loi n'a jamais rendu les hommes plus justes d'un iota ; et, à cause du respect qu'ils lui marquent, les êtres bien disposés eux-même deviennent les agents de l'injustice.

I will not through humility become the devil's attorney

I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.

La masse des hommes sert l'État de la sorte, pas en tant qu'hommes, mais comme des machines, avec leurs corps. Ils forment l'armée de métier, ainsi que la milice, les geôliers, policiers, posse comitatus, etc. Dans la plupart des cas, il n'existe aucun libre exercice du jugement ou du sens moral ; mais ils se mettent au niveau du bois, de la terre et des pierres ; et l'on pourrait réaliser des hommes de bois qui rempliraient aussi bien cette fonction.

for the devil finds employment for the idle

It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.

Penso che dovremmo essere uomini prima di essere sudditi. Non è da augurarsi che l'uomo coltivi il rispetto per le leggi ma piuttosto che rispetti ciò che è giusto.

No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.