Quotes About Morality

You see my point? The average person has a very average notion of goodness to which they aspire averagely. To aspire to goodness in any remarkable way would be 'undemocratic'.

If God's suggesting that I am expected to do good and also obligated to manufacture a genuine desire for it, this boat's sunk, still sitting on the trailer in the driveway. A stack of things need to happen before I desire to be good…

Also, always encourage 'being good' over 'doing good.' Acts of goodness are the difficulty for us and should, of course, be avoided. 'Being good' is far less problematic, largely because it lacks definition and can be solely a state of mind completely unattached to reality.

For example, your man might think: I don't steal. Maybe on my taxes, everyone does that, but not in the way I heard so and so stole from his company. See? Those men for whose opinion he cares approve of embezzlement in one area, not the other. He uses them to maintain a claim on goodness while at the same time stealing.

If they ever envision Goodness as a thing that exists outside them, some real thing they've been called to participate in by their actions, well then, we're headed right back toward The Virtues.

We've spent centuries moving them away from that word virtue and especially The Virtues and that's precisely how we did it —by making it lower case.

And keep them thinking in terms of 'being good' as this is not an end so much as a means to something else —happiness, respect, self-esteem, etc… And whatever their true end is, take it away, and so goes their goodness.

Thus it should appear to everyone that the best pastime of all is to be often in good company, far from unworthy men and from unworthy activities from which no good can come.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To make a vow is a greater sin than to break one.

Is it not strange that men are so keen to fight for religion and so unkeen to live according to its precepts?

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

Siempre he procurado imponerme leyes que sólo entren en vigor cuando me sea casi imposible violarlas.

Sin duda la primera sátira fue hecha por venganza. Utilizarla para el mejoramiento del prójimo, contra los vicios y no contra los viciosos, es ya un pensamiento domesticado, enfriado, deglutido.

For long ages, too, no notice whatever was taken of the criminals sin; he was regarded as harmful, not guilty, and looked upon as a piece of destiny; and the criminal on his side took his punishment as a piece of destiny which had overtaken him, and bore it with the same fatalism ... In general we may say that punishment tames the man, but does not make him better.

What [Nietzsche] calls slave morality is to him purely spite-morality; and this spite-morality gave new names to all ideals. Thus impotence, which offers no reprisal, became goodness; craven baseness became humility; submission to him who was feared became obedience; inability to assert ones self became reluctance to assert ones self, became forgiveness, love of ones enemies. Misery became a distinction

Since fresh examples and proofs could always be found of the alleged relation between guilt and punishment: if you behave in such and such a way, it will go badly with you. Now, as it generally does go badly, the allegation was constantly confirmed; and thus popular morality, a pseudo- science on a level with popular medicine, continually gained ground.

Discretion is nothing other than the sense of justice with respect to the sphere of the intimate contents of life.

Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights

Education is the art of making man ethical

My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I'm pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.

Why was it necessary for the flood to come? Why did the Lord permit the cities of the plains to be destroyed by fire? It was because the people would not take advantage of their opportunities. They were not only wasting their lives here upon the earth but were also bringing into the world another generation which would follow their bad example. . . . The cities of the plains were burned that their wickedness might not continue to jeopardize other communities and children as yet unborn.

There is a line of demarcation well defined between the Lord's territory and the devil's territory. If you will stay on the Lord's side of the line you will be under his influence and will have no desire to do wrong; but if you cross to the devil's side of that line one inch you are in the tempter's power and if he is successful, you will not be able to think or even reason properly because you will have lost the Spirit of the Lord.

Conscience is the mirror of our souls which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.