Quotes About Morality

For action is indeed the sole medium of expression for ethics.

In this effort toward a higher morality in our social relations, we must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity only in connection with the activity of the many.

It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless.

But stranger than any episode was the fact itself that neither the convict, his wife, nor his godfather for a moment considered him a criminal. He had merely gotten excited over cards and had stabbed his adversary with a knife. Why should a man who took his luck badly be kept forever from the sun? was their reiterated inquiry.

If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it.

How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.

I was so anxious to do what is right that I forgot to do what is right.

Evil to some is always good to others

Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.

I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.

When the evening was over, Anne could not be amused…nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

General benevolence, but not general friendship, make a man what he ought to be.

The worst crimes; are the crimes of the heart

We do not look in great cities for our best morality.

The loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable - that one false step involves in her endless ruin - that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful - and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the opposite sex.

the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.

That loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable-- that one false step involves her in endless ruin-- that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful-- and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the opposite sex. ~Mary Bennett, P&P

Human nature needs more lessons than a weekly sermon can convey.

A person who is knowingly bent on bad behavior, gets upset when better behavior is expected of them.

Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.

Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone.

Well, evil to some is always good to others.