Quotes About Morality

In philosophy class I think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive term - it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it's better than bad, though why it's better to be good than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on.

I don't know of a soul who doesn't maintain two separate lists of doctrines - the ones they believe they believe; and the ones that they actually try to live by.

Just because they didn't know they were killing human beings doesn't mean they weren't killing human beings.

The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community.

If the act is evil, the actor is evil.

Val, said Mother, goodness trumps greatness any day. Not in the history books, said Valentine. Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they? said Father.

He was only a child, doing what adults led him to do; but somewhere in his heart he knew that even a child is a real person, that a child's acts are real acts, that even a child's play is not without moral context.

A man always assumes that others are as virtuous as himself

But then, I would rather be mocked for doing a good thing than to be respected, knowing I have done wrong.

I thought speakers didn't believe in sin, said a sullen boy. Andrew smiled. You believe in sin, Styrka, and you do things because of that belief. So sin is real in you, and knowing you, this speaker must believe in sin.

He did what he thought was right

don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but the map.

I hear they whip you for stealing. Or put you in jail, or sell you into slavery, or kill you, depending on the town and what mood they're in.

Even gentle people recognize that sometimes the decision not to kill is a decision to die.

What I'm telling you is, there's some people who do things so bad it tears at the fabric of the world, and then there's some people so sweet and good that they can feel it when the world gets torn.

Which of them, then, was more detestable? The one who was loathsome by nature, or the one who wanted to be loathsome but hadn't enough ambition to excel at it>

Evil isn't best served by equally evil servants.

I sold my brother," Valentine said, "and they paid me for it.

There are times when you have to defend yourself or someone else against relentless evil. And some of those times the only defense that has any hope of succeeding is a one-time use of brutal, devastating force. At such times good people act brutally.

But my eagerness to sacrifice little children in order to save mankind is wearing thin.

My husband is a good man, she said. It's important to him to be a good man. He has to not only be good, he has to believe that he's good. In the eyes of God, in my eyes, in his parents' eyes, in his own eyes. Good.

Val," said Mother, "goodness trumps greatness any day." "Not in the history books," said Valentine. "Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they?" said Father.

I would rather be mocked for doing a good thing than to be respected, knowing I have done wrong.

What the world is seeing is that the savior of the world has a little problem – he kills children.