Quotes About Morality

For Alinsky, morality is a scam. Morality is the cloak of power. Activists appeal to the language of morality but recognize that it is a mere disguise. As Alinsky puts it, "Ethical standards must be elastic to stretch with the times. . . . In action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent with one's individual conscience. . . . You do what you can with what you have, and then clothe it with moral garments."13 In

Alinsky's contempt for traditional morality can also be seen in the figure to whom he dedicated his book Rules for Radicals. That figure is the devil. Alinsky calls Lucifer "the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom." He goes on to say, "If there's an afterlife, and I have anything to say about it, I will unreservedly go to hell. Hell would be heaven for me."15

We remain the custodians of the idea that wealth should be obtained through

socialism is the ideology of thieves and

Let us concede at the outset that, in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. Thus we should not be surprised that there is a considerable amount of vice, licentiousness, and vulgarity in a free society. Given the warped timber of humanity, freedom is simply an expression of human flaws and weaknesses. But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best.

What's striking here is the shamelessness of Moore, Sanders and Warren.

What kind of generosity is it that forcibly seizes and then disburses other people's money? This is not generosity; it's larceny.

The Devil's out of fashion.

Is it wrong for me to feel so happy? Perhaps I ought even to feel guilty? No. I didn't make it happen, and it can't hurt anyone but me. Surely I have a right to my joy. For as long as it lasts...

It can't be immoral to love anyone -- as long as one doesn't hurt anyone by it.

And though I cannot honestly say I would ever turn my back on any luxury that I could come by, I do feel there is something a bit wrong in it. Perhaps that makes it all the more enjoyable.

You live in a tower that soars to heaven and goes unpunished by God.

How many times do two people have to fuck before one of them deserves to die?

Is it better to commit evil and attempt to balance it with an exalted act than to live a resolutely neutral life?

What happens to good an evil in this system? Passion, envy and hate? Do they become a tangle of neurons? Are you telling me that a whole tradition of human failings is now at an end, that cowardice, sadism, molestation are meaningless terms? Are we being asked to regard these things nostalgically? What about murderous rage? A murderer used to have a certain fearsome size to him. His crime was large. what happens when we reduce it to calls and molecules?

Imagining yourself dead is the cheapest, sleaziest, most satisfying form of childish self-pity. How sad and remorseful and guilty all those people are, standing by your great bronze coffin.

Perhaps we no longer know what it means to repent because we no longer know what it means to sin.

We're clear. We're vague. We hate. We love. We feel passionately about our shoes yet shrug off disasters on TV. We are finely tuned sensors of right and wrong, and horrible examples for our kids. We are walking contradictions. We are encyclopedias of the heart.

The real voice is stiller and smaller and seems to know, without confusion, the difference between right and wrong and the subtle delineation between the beautiful and profane. It's not an agitated voice, but ever patient as though it approves a million false starts. The voice I am talking about is a deep water of calming wisdom.

Work on your character and a good life will come to you.

Of all the principles I'd learn about story, the idea that a character is what he does remains the hardest to actually live.

The person who believes the sum of his morality involves gay marriage and abortion alone, and neglects health care and world trade and the environment and loving his neighbor and feeding the poor is, by definition, a theological liberal, because he takes what he wants from Scripture and ignores the rest.

All this gave way to my first encounter with guilt, which is still something entirely inscrutable to me, as if aliens were sending transmissions from another planet, telling me there is a right and a wrong in the universe.

Para nosotros es difícil admitir que tenemos una naturaleza pecaminosa porque vivimos en este sistema de chequeos y balanzas. Si somos atrapados, seremos castigados. Pero eso no nos hace gente buena, solo nos hace dóciles.