Quotes About Morality

And it occurs to no one that to acknowledge a greatness not commensurate with the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one's own nothingness and immeasurable meanness.

But if man, as in our society, advances only towards physical love, even though he surrounds it with deceptions and with the shallow formality of marriage, he obtains nothing but licensed vice.

War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous.

Never had I heard from my elders that what I thus did was bad. It is true that there are the ten commandments of the Bible; but the commandments are made only to be recited before the priests at examinations, and even then are not as exacting as the commandments in regard to the use of ut in conditional propositions.

Vronsky's life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment's hesitation about doing what he ought to do.

On the contrary one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive, that's not my fault, so I must live out my live the best I can, without hurting others.

I became convinced that almost all the priests of that religion, the writers, were immoral, and for the most part men of bad, worthless character, much inferior to those whom I had met in my former dissipated and military life;

It is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.

Why is gambling forbidden while women in costumes which evoke sensuality are not forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous!

So long as people do not consider all men as their brothers and do not consider human life as the most sacred thing, which rather than destroy they must consider it their first and foremost duty to support; that is so long as people do not behave towards one another in a religious manner, they will always ruin one another's lives for the sake of personal gain.

I wrote: teaching what was for me the only truth, namely, that one should live so as to have the best for oneself and one's family.

I ragionamenti lo portavano a dubbi e gli impedivano di vedere quel che si doveva e quel che non si doveva fare. Quando invece non pensava, ma viveva, sentiva incessantemente nell'animo suo la presenza d'un giudice infallibile che decideva quale di due azioni possibili fosse migliore e quale peggiore, e, appena agiva non così come si doveva, lo sentiva immediatamente.

We expect rewards for goodness, and punishments for the bad things which we do. Often, they are not immediately

It is necessary that men, governed by their own feelings, find sensual delight in virtue.

If the good has a cause, it is no longer the good; if it has a consequence - a reward - it is also not the good. Therefore the good is outside the chain of cause and effect.

The law of God is not to return evil for evil; indeed, if you try in this way to stamp out wickedness it will come upon you all the stronger. It is not difficult for you to kill the man, but his blood will surely stain your own soul. You may think you have killed a bad man--that you have gotten rid of evil--but you will soon find out that the seeds of still greater wickedness have been planted within you.

the chief if not the sole cause of the enslavement of the Indian peoples by the English lies in this very absence of a religious consciousness and of the guidance for conduct which should flow from it—a lack common in our day to all nations East and West, from Japan to England and America alike.

This ideal of glory and grandeur--which consists not merely in considering that nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on every crime once commits.

Se poate afla cu u?urin?? cât fier ?i ce metale se g?sesc în soare ?i în stele,dar s? sco?i la iveal? tic?lo?ia noastr? e greu,îngrozitor de greu...

What is bad? What is good? What should one love and what hate? What does one live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What power governs all?

Don't steal the rolls!

The starting point of it all was, of course, moral perfection, but this was soon replaced by a belief in overall perfection, that is, a desire to be better not in my own eyes or in the eyes of God, but rather a desire to be better in the eyes of other people. And this effort to be better in the eyes of other people was very quickly displaced by a longing to be stronger than other people, that is, more renowned, more important, wealthier than others.

Don't steal rolls.