Quotes About Morality

Interpreting De Waal in religious terms, I would argue that morality does not amount to a codified set of behaviour dictated by a God 'out there', but is an instinctive response to 'that of God' (as the Quakers put it) within each of us.

Never concede to evil…. When we concede to evil, even in a small way, we feed it, and it grows stronger.

Once the decision is out of your hands, there's no way you can be tempted into doing the wrong thing.

In some ways, it was far easier to be bad than good. When you're bad, you don't care what happens to anyone other than yourself. When you're trying to do god, you have to worry about everyone.

Justice. It wasn't about the greater good. It was about what was right and wrong on an individual basis. Person by person. Because if you neglected the people, the idea of a greater good was a pipe dream created by those whose idea of the "greater good" almost always tended to favor themselves and people like them.

If Jackson had learned one thing over the years it was that nothing, absolutely nothing, was above corruption so long as human beings were involved, because, in truth, most people were not above the lure of the dollar or other material entitlements.

Meaning evil only wins—" "—when good men and women do nothing.

Was revenge always wrong? Was righting an injustice outside the law never condonable?

supremely noble act in a world more and more devoid of anything remotely virtuous.

You know what kind of person it takes to run for President? Not normal. They could start out okay, but by the time they reach that level they've sold their soul to the devil so many times and stomped the guts out of enough people that they are definitely not like you and me, not even close." Frank

It doesn't take much for civilized people to become animals.

Robie slept soundly after killing five men.

Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for zyklon b, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental missiles , military space platforms and nuclear weapons? If memory serves it was not the Vatican.

Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for Zyklon B, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental ballistic missiles, military space platforms, and nuclear weapons? If memory serves, it was not the Vatican.

Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for Zyklon B, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental ballistic missiles, military space platforms, and nuclear weapons?

As a moral matter, individuals must be free to make their own decisions and to succeed or fail according to their own choices. As a practical matter, as Frum points out, when we shield people from the consequences of their actions, we get a society characterized not by thrift, sobriety, diligence, self-reliance, and prudence but by profligacy, intemperance, indolence, dependency, and indifference to consequences.

Far worse than bribery is blackmail. Whether a person was originally entrapped in some small misjudgment, or willingly did something awful, the man who is blackmailed is far easier for evil ones to control than someone who is merely greedy or venial.

read it aloud to that teetering RASR (Residually Adult-Sane Republican) … and explain that yes, this is how we feel, ever more, each day in the face of soul-destroying, nation-wrecking treason by a madness that – like the 1860s Confederacy – is without any moral foundation, whatsoever. Tell your ostrich Republican friends, they need to choose sides in this potentially lethal phase of our endless Civil War.

there were few worse criminals on any world than the engineer who blithely and knowingly hands over to a tyrant the tools of oppression.

Bobos are uncomfortable with universal moral laws that purport to regulate pleasure. Bobos prefer more prosaic self-controlled regimes. The things that are forbidden are unhealthy or unsafe. The things that are encouraged are enriching or calorie burning. In other words, we regulate our carnal desires with health codes instead of moral codes.

You can't really know God if you ignore his laws, especially the ones that regulate the most intimate spheres of life. You may be responsible and healthy, but you will also be shallow and inconsequential.

But I've seen enough to know that we all carry a measure of guilt and innocence among us.

No one has a moral or legal obligation to credit me for my cleverness or praise my good efforts on their behalf.

The policeman recognized me, but I suppose that's only natural. Silk was going to kill him, but I said no." "Why?" Beldin asked bluntly. "We were in the middle of a busy street for one thing. Killing somebody's the sort of thing you ought to do in private, wouldn't you say?