Quotes About Morality

It's a tough thing, to know what to do about a war that deep in your gut you feel is wrong and yet watch your peers going off to fight in that war.

Thinking like ethical people, dressing like ethical people, decorating our homes like ethical people makes not a damn of difference unless we also behave like ethical people.

Si la hipocresía es la distancia que hay entre nuestros principios y nuestro comportamiento, es muy fácil no ser nunca un hipócrita; basta con no tener ningún principio.

I believe that informed adults should be allowed to inflict whatever suffering they wish - on themselves. But we are not entitled to harm other people.

Most people approve of capital punishment, but most people wouldn't do the hangman's job.

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

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is a thing that human beings must avoid.

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

All too often Christians look at morality from the negative viewpoint. Christian growth does not come from what we don't do. It is rather a product of what we actively do in our daily lives. The Christian ethic is a positive ethic, and the Christian life, as an expression of that ethic, is a positive, active existence.

If I had stabbed the mad king in the belly instead of the back, would you admire me more?

You think my life is such a precious thing to me, that I would trade my honor for a few more years, of what?

A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man's life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.

You can write the most detailed, vivid description of an ax entering a skull, and nobody will say a word in protest. But if you write a similarly detailed description of a penis entering a vagina, you get letters from people saying they'll never read you again. What the hell? Penises entering vaginas bring a lot more joy into the world than axes entering skulls.

Si no tiene nada que temer, un cobarde no se distingue en nada de un valiente. Y todos cumplimos con nuestro deber cuando no nos cuesta nada.

After he had paused just a moment at the red lights, he drove on through them, even though feeling a slight sense of wrongdoing as he did so.

A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.

There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.

A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man's life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose. (Maester Aemon)

How can you still count yourself a knight, when you have forsaken every vow you ever swore?" Jaime reached for the flagon to refill his cup. "So many vows...they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or the other.

Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad.

Explain to me why it is more noble to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner.

Sometimes there is no happy choice, Sam, only one less grievous than the others.