Quotes About Morality

His tenuously held scruples about the slave economy did not stop him from briefly musing whether he should have himself bid for Abe Hawkins.

One day, I hope to go back. To my wife, to my girls, but also to the man of moral certainty that I was that day; that innocent man, who knew with such clear confidence exactly what it was that he was meant to do.

To lessen or destroy sexual pleasure is to lessen temptation; a fallback in case the religious injunctions on veiling and seclusion somehow fail to do the job.

Every crime like this needs someone like me to look away and say nothing.

Lord bless us! I never would have believed it! said the friar, startled out of his usual cynicism. 'An honest man!

Lord bless us! I never would have believed it!' said the friar, startled out of his usual cynicism. 'An honest man!

Above all, for his merciless, contemptuous treatment of Clifford Chatterley, blown to bits in Flanders in 1918, Lawrence can be damned to hell. Damned but not banned.

The opponents of female suffrage lamented that woman's emancipation would mean the end of marriage, morality and the state; their extremism was more clear-sighted than the woolly benevolence of liberals and humanists, who thought that giving women a measure of freedom would not upset anything. When we reap the harvest which the unwitting suffragettes sowed we shall see that the anti-feminists were after all right.

One does evil enough when one does nothing good.

Though the Church authorities were clearly interested in trying to impose a tighter moral discipline on society, they were never completely successful in extinguishing popular culture's hold on Christmas celebrations.44

Murder is a crime. Describing murder is not. Sex is not a crime. Describing sex is.

To look upon religion as the ultimate source of morality, and hence of a good society and a sound policy, is not demeaning to religion. On the contrary, it pays religion—and God—the great tribute of being essential to the welfare of mankind. And it does credit to man as well, who is deemed capable of subordinating his lower nature to his higher, of venerating and giving obeisance to something above himself.

You are so afraid of losing your moral sense that you are not willing to take it through anything more dangerous than a mud-puddle.

In the mean time I worship God, laying every wrong action under an interdict which I endeavour to respect, and I loathe the wicked without doing them any injury.

The same principle that forbids me to lie does not allow me to tell the truth.

People are ashamed, not of the injustices they do, but of those they receive. And so, in order that the unjust person should be ashamed, there is no other way than to give as good as one gets.

La verità, che una cosa sia buona, che un'altra sia cattiva, vale a dire il bene e il male, si credono naturalmente assoluti, e non sono altro che relativi. Quest'è una fonte immensa di errori e volgari e filosofici.

Dico che il mondo è una lega di birbanti contro gli uomini dabbene, di vili contro i generosi.

Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore, non feci mai male ad anima viva!

Insomma, da tutto ciò che si è in quest'opera ragionato, è da finalmente conchiudersi che questa scienza porta indivisibilmente seco lo studio della pietà, e che, se non siesi pio, non si può daddovero esser saggio, SN 1112

Sin religión alguna de una Divinidad, jamás los hombres en nación se concertaron; y así comode cosas físicas, o sea de los movimientos de los cuerpos, no cabeciencia segura sin la guía de las verdades abstractas de la matemática, así no cabe en las cosas morales sin el aprecio de las verdades abstractas de la metafísica, y por tanto sin la demostración de Dios.

Ci ho riflettuto molti anni dopo, esaminando la mia grande difficoltà ad accettare aiuto. Sapersela sbrigare da soli è bene. Credere di doversela sbrigare sempre da soli, senza mai chiedere aiuto, è una debolezza travestita da forza. Se non sai chiedere aiuto, di regola non sai nemmeno cosa fare quando ti viene offerto spontaneamente, quando sarebbe morale accettarlo (e immorale rifiutarlo).

Each of us, over the years, creates a character for ourselves. One we identify with, which corresponds to a positive idea of ourselves, which encapsulates the qualities we like to think we have. Your character, the one you've created for yourself, the one you identify with, has, among its various characteristics, one that could be described like this: He's a criminal lawyer, therefore he defends criminals, but not those who've committed heinous and disgusting crimes.

My grandfather often quoted it, and said that the rule of moral balance is the opposite of the behaviour described in that sentence. It means not lying to ourselves about the significance of, and the reasons for, what we do and what we don't do. It means not looking for justifications, not manipulating the account we make of ourselves to anyone, including ourselves.