Quotes About Morality

The Nuremberg trials established the principle that neither "obeying the law" nor "following orders" is a sufficient legal defense for those accused of violating basic standards of civilization.

Good people do good things and bad people do bad things," I was told, "but for good people to do bad things, that takes religion.

caring about others and about the proposition that we are all created equal—is the single most effective antidote to the self-centered moral numbness that allows Fascism to thrive.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what's evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We're less sure about what is good. There's sort of good, good enough, could be better - but absolute good is a little harder to define.

The death of 500,000 dead Iraqi children was "a very hard choice, but the price-we think the price is worth it

Being accused of having double standards is preferable to being convicted—due to our own refusal to act—of honoring no standards at all.

Fascist attitudes take hold when there are no social anchors and when the perception grows that everybody lies, steals, and cares only about him- or herself.

And yet throughout the world, past and present, for thousands of years, those whom we call good men, righteous men, have been accustomed to the sight of such things, have sat and looked and considered them to be matters of course, have not demanded justice for the victims or offered to help them. This is the most appalling, unjust, and unequal thing, the most inexplicable theory under heaven.

She wanted to tell him that whatever happened, whatever they chose, one day they would have to come awake, everyone would have to stand up and confront themselves and realize that it wasn't the Party that made them do it. One day, they would be alone with their actions.

Hypocrites can be very pious

Doing the right thing often resulted in living the wrong thing forever. -Christian, Marquess of Eastrerbrook

we must be certain that our children can face these challenges armed with a well-developed moral compass.

He is more worth to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?

No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from." "But what if he is your friend?" Achilles had asked him, ... [o]r your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?" "You ask a question that philosophers argue over," Chiron had said. "He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?

You ask a question that philosophers argue over," Chiron had said. "He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?

And you can sit out here in the hour before dawn, boy, and think virtuous thoughts and tell yourself how noble you are and all that shit, and you are going to lay back and hang on to the money, because that is the way the world keeps score. Not your way. Not lately.

That old honorary Cuban had simplified the question all to hell when he'd said that a moral act is something you feel good after. Conversely, you feel bad after an immoral act. But what about the act that is neither moral nor immoral, Papa? How are you supposed to feel then?

God and your folks give you the face you're born with, but you earn the one you die with.

What you feel good after one time, you feel rotten after the next. And it is difficult to know in advance. And morality shouldn't be experimental, I don't think.

There is an aesthetic dimension to virtue. In real life, as opposed to in celluloid, we are attracted to the good and repelled by the bad. Even the woman who says she prefers the archetypal 'bad boy' probably doesn't actually like it when he is bad toward her.

The notion that the gods care how we treat one another would have been dismissed as patently absurd. . . . This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. . . . This was revolutionary stuff. Indeed, it was the cultural basis for the revitalization of the Roman world. (Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 209–15.)

In a morally and religiously diverse culture such as ours, humility is a much-needed key to harmony.

We have forgotten how to flex two mental muscles at the same time: the muscle of moral conviction and the muscle of compassion to all regardless of their morality.

The fact of the matter is that an honest man wont soil his hands with politics, and he's given no inducement to take public office." "That's true, a live man, nowadays, wants more money, needs more money than he can make honestly in public life. . . . Naturally the best men turn to other channels.