Quotes About Morality

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

One has got to choose between the two evils, also between the lesser of the two evils in the matter of food, and therefore vegetarian food has got to be taken by man in order to sustain human life.

He had some measure of the infuriating trait that causes a young man to be a nonconformist for its own sake and found that the surest way to shock most people, in those days, was to believe that some kinds of behavior were bad and others good, and that it was reasonable to live one's life accordingly.

How long do you want these messages to remain secret?[...] +I want them to remain secret for as long as men are capable of evil.

Do you reject the glamor of Evil, and refuse to be mastered by it?

The only reason no one ever did it with humans is because it seemed ethically dodgy, as well as completely unnecessary given the willingness of men to impregnate women every chance they got.

Questions about Ethics so perplexing that even a Jesuit couldn't respond without committing a venial sin.

Even though he grew up in churches, raised by church people, Waterhouse (as must be obvious by this point) never really understood their attitudes about sex. Why did they get so hung up on that one issue, when there were others like murder, war, poverty, and pestilence?

If he lived by a simple code of ethics, it was not an end in itself, but a way to get something done without selling his soul or destroying his reputation. It was a tool to be wielded like a shovel or a stick of dynamite.

If he lived by a simple code of ethics, it was not an end in itself, but a way to get something done without selling his soul or destroying his reputation. It was a tool to be wielded like a shovel or a stick of dynamite. Tools were for building things; and pride was something you could feel after the fact, when you stood back, looked at what you had built, and passed it on to your children. Dinah

This Land was made wrong. All of his efforts to make it right only spread the wrongness about in new ways. It is left to souls like me to decide what to do about it; and though I cannot see all the answers, I can guess that adding more wrongness will not help matters.

The problem with those honorable men," Avi says, "is that they expect everyone else to be honorable in the same way.

he lived by a simple code of ethics, it was not an end in itself, but a way to get something done without selling his soul or destroying his reputation. It was a tool to be wielded like a shovel or a stick of dynamite. Tools were for building things; and pride was something you could feel after the fact, when you stood back, looked at what you had built, and passed it on to your children.

These people cared about eternal truths. Believed that some—but not all—such truths were written down in a book. That their book was right and the others wrong. This much they had in common with most of the other people who had ever lived.

It tells you that evil is a virus!

never really understood their attitudes about sex. Why did they get so hung up on that one issue, when there were others like murder, war, poverty, and pestilence?

For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour—you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another. Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy.

I have come to the conclusion that the true benefit of religion is not to make people virtuous, which is impossible, but to put a sort of bridle on the worst excesses of their viciousness.

Isn't it interesting that you find nothing blasphemous about seeking to be like the devil, but seeking to be like God offends you—

Yet I have said over and over again that there is no "right" or "wrong" in the universe. A thing is not intrinsically right or wrong. A thing simply is.

With you, it seems to be merely a question of time. The legality of self-destruction—the "rightness" or "wrongness" of it—seems to have much to do with how quickly the deed is done, as well as who is doing it. The faster the death, the more "wrong" it seems to be. The slower the death, the more it slips into "okayness.

Betrayal of yourself in order not to betray another is betrayal nonetheless. It is the highest betrayal.

Aren't all laws simply man's attempt to codify moral concepts? Is not "legislation" simply our combined agreement as to what is "right" and "wrong"? Yes. And certain civil laws—rules and regulations—are required in your primitive society. (You understand that in nonprimitive societies such laws are unnecessary. All beings regulate themselves.)

ask yourself a simple question: What would happen if everyone did it? This is a very easy measure, and a very accurate one. If everyone did a thing, and the result was of ultimate benefit to the human race, then that is "evolved." If everyone did it and it brought disaster to the human race, then that is not a very "elevated" thing to recommend. Do you agree?