Quotes About Morality

We are not hypocrites in our sleep.

The only vice that can not be forgiven is hypocrisy.

He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.

Even a highwayman, in the way of trade, may blow out your brains, but if he uses foul language at the same time, I should say he was no gentleman.

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.

I do not think... that any man has the right to take life. When he thinks he has he is at his most dangerous.

Unless education promotes character making, unless it helps men to be more moral, more just to their fellows, more law abiding, more discriminatingly patriotic and public spirited, it is not worth the trouble taken to furnish it.

Captain Hale, alone, without sympathy or support, save that from above, on the near approach of death asked for a clergyman to attend him. It was refused. He then requested a Bible that too was refused by his inhuman jailer.

two of the most fascinating yet troublesome topics in moral philosophy—forgiveness and redemption—issues that must be dealt with together. Without forgiveness there can be no redemption, and forgiveness that does not grant redemption is hollow.

Usually we think a person is obligated to do something that would benefit many people, but what if that "something" is committing murder? Which is more important, doing good—or not doing wrong?

Luckily, literature—and by "literature" I mean comic books—provides us a way to discuss issues like these without having to experience them. We don't have to trick people into standing in front of a runaway trolley, and we don't have to have a real-life Batman and Joker. That's what thought experiments are for—they let us play through an imaginary scenario and imagine what we should or shouldn't do.

Rorschach did not seek death; he didn't commit suicide by Manhattan. But he understood what the others did not. "It is better to sacrifice life than to forfeit morality. It is not necessary to live, but it is necessary that, so long as we live, we do so honourably."18

a famous quote by Nietzsche, "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster.

As Rorschach so poetically put it, "This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not god who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us."12

The principles of Christianity, deeply engraved on the heart, would be infinitely more powerfulthan the false honor of the monarchies...

The essence of education is, in the words of William James, to teach a person what deserves to be valued, to impart ideals as well as knowledge, to cultivate in students the ability to distinguish the true and good from their counterfeits and the wisdom to prefer the former to the latter.

John Stuart Mill, the British philosopher, said, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

United States military profession as early as 1863 in General Order number 100 of the United States Army Field Manual: "Men who take up arms against another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings responsible to one another." Individuals always remain ethically responsible for their actions, for the choices they make among conflicting moral obligations, as well as for the consequences which result from them.

Manifestly, man is the ape that imitates, tells stories, seeks status, morally condemns others, and yearns for the good old days, all of which guarantee a human future studded with religious and financial mass manias.

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.

The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.

The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess success. That—with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success—is our national disease.

There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we should seek incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act as to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.