Quotes About Morality

Where does character come into it? Just this: I've always been pretty sure I could kill someone if I had to. Myself, or my father—whichever option proved most practical. I wouldn't kill for hatred's sake; I'd only do it to solve a problem. And only after other solutions have failed. That kind of bottom line is either in your character or it isn't, and like I said, it develops early.

Eddie and Jim both said it was a great thing the Russians were winning because the strongest team should win. Shannon thought the fascist philosophy was a very comfortable one. You simply cheered for the winner, who proved by virtue of winning that he should have won. No analysis, no doubts, no troubling moral questions.

I cannot believe in a God who metes out hurt for hurt, pain for pain, torture for torture. Nor do I believe that God invests human representatives with such power to torture and kill. The paths of history are stained with the blood of those who have fallen victim to "God's Avengers." Kings and Popes and military generals and heads of state have killed, claiming God's authority and God's blessing. I do no believe in such a God.

if I were to be murdered I would not want my murderer executed. I would not want my death avenged. Especially by government — which can't be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.

Thoreau: "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

No man can understand why a woman shouldn't prefer a good reputation to a good time.

She could never take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The weak and flaccid parity would make her nearly puke. She wants an eye for a tooth, and a life for an eye.

Making other people feel bad about themselves and their needs is a very powerful thing to do. Totally immoral, but powerful.

Tienes el Viaje a América de De Tocqueville? Alguien tomó prestado el mío, y no me lo ha devuelto. ¿Por qué será que personas a las que jamás se les pasaría por la imaginación robar nada encuentran perfectamente lícito robar libros?

Por qué será que personas a las que jamás se les pasaría por la imaginación robar nada encuentran perfectamente lícito robar libros?

Murder is murder, and a killer is a killer! Even if he pisses in a gold chamberpot, he's still a killer.

The term "bioethics" was coined by Van Rensselaer Potter, who used it to describe his proposal that we need an ethic that can incorporate our obligations, not just to other humans, but to the biosphere as a whole.

There is no such thing as a conscience that is (quantitatively) more or less good, depending on how close I come to ethically fulfilling the Law (Mark 10:20). There is only that conscience which is either blinded by Satan or comforted by God.

Each country will be a moral force, and no longer a brutal force; while all brutal forces clash with themselves, all moral forces make mighty harmony together.

I am not slighting intellect; but life is common to us along with poorer living things than ourselves. He who kills an animal, however lowly it may be, unless there is necessity, is an assassin.

Whether as a moral kink or a crooked twist given to the will, vice has often the appearance of a curvature for the soul.

A flexible vice may not be so easy to ridicule as a rigid virtue.

I found that the scales of life, honesty is the balance that should be maintained if there is to be a true civilisation at all. The one who cheats merely cheats himself, because he has lost the scale by which right and wrong are the guides for the uncertain; in his confusion, for the moment, he has no more confidence in himself and his ability to know right from wrong.

Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.

Before crime is committed conscience must be corrupted, and every bad man who succeeds in reaching a high point of wickedness begins with this.

Torture when inflicted on children becomes indefensible. Even among those who believe that torture is a defensible practice to extract information, the case for inflicting pain and abuse upon children proves impossible to support.

There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.

Women have, commonly, a very positive moral sense; that which they will, is right; that which they reject, is wrong; and their will, in most cases, ends by settling the moral.

Good men do the most harm.