Quotes About Morality

survival is a dance between our needs and our consciences.

How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows? They do it all the time, says Hayden. That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

Lord, if what I'm doing is wrong, then by all means strike me down. Otherwise set me free.

And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the convergence of the wrong, of the right, and of the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep...For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of a doubt, which is which.

People can be monsters. Whether it's just their actions, or whether it's who they really are, it doesn't matter. The result is the same.

This is not going to be easy. I'm good at being bad, but I'm bad at being good. I don't know the first thing about good deeds.

In a perfect world mothers would all want their babies, and strangers would open up their homes to the unloved. In a perfect world everthing would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.

of course, if more people had been organ donors, unwinding never would have happened... but people like to keep what's theirs, even after their dead. It didnt take long for ethics to be crushed by greed. Unwinding became big business, and people let it happen

Have I not expressed sufficient remorse?' 'You have. But there are still consequences. Even for necessary things.' 'I broke none of my laws...' 'No, but you broke mine. [...] Therefore, I can no longer speak to you. You are... Unsavory to me.

The accountant lingers at his children's doorway a moment more, listening to the easy rhythm of their breathing, and something cold moves through him, like the passage of a ghost - but he know that's not it. It's more like the portent of a future. A future that must never come to pass... ...and for the first time, he gives rise to a thought that is silently echoed in millions of homes that night. My God... what have we done?

People aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness all our lives.

There's a lot written about killers from the mortal age –monsters like Jack the Ripper, or Charlie Manson, or Cyber Sally –and the only difference between them and Goddard is that people let Goddard get away with it. The mortals knew how wrong it was, but somehow we've forgotten.

The sanctity of the law . . . and the wisdom to know when it must be broken.

If every part of you is alive but inside someone else . . . are you alive or are you dead?

No one knows wether you're a monster or a hero. Is there a third choice?

the darkest of deeds can be hidden beneath shining armor that claims to protect the greater good.

He (Connor) will only do the wrong thing when it's the right thing to do. - Risa

s]ometimes doing the right thing means doing the wrong thing first.

It's always the lesser of two evils.' 'I don't see why there have to be any evils at all.' -Connor

Just because the law says it, that doesn't make it true. Yeah, well, just because the law says it, it doesn't make it false, either. It's only the law because a whole lot of people thought abou it, and decided it made sense. (...) But if it weren't for the law, would you still believe it?

She wanted to tell him how much she admired him for what he had done. Choosing compassion over obligation. There was a lesson to be learned in every gleaning, and today`s was one she would not soon forget. The sanctity of the law... and the wisdom to know when it must be broken.

If we gleaned every asshole," Scythe Volta had once told Rowan, "there'd be virtually no one left.

He had set out to be judge and jury – the consequence for those who knew no consequences.

The end doesn't always justify the means, dear," she said. "But sometimes it does. Wisdom is knowing the difference.