Quotes About Morality

The concrete man has but one interest—to be right. That to him is the art of all arts, and all means are fair which help him to it.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.

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

Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life.

The difference between a good man and a bad man is the choice of cause.

Morality is the power of endurance in man; and a religion which teaches personal responsibility to God gives strength to morality. There is a powerful restraining influence in the belief that an all-seeing eye scrutinizes every thought and word and act of the individual.

The poor man who takes property by force is called a thief, but the creditor who can by legislation make a debtor pay a dollar twice as large as he borrowed is lauded as the friend of a sound currency. The man who wants the people to destroy the Government is an anarchist, but the man who wants the Government to destroy the people is a patriot.

No one can earn a million dollars honestly.

The parents have a right to say that no teacher paid by their money shall rob their children of faith in God and send them back to their homes skeptical, or infidels, or agnostics, or atheists.

He that lies with the dogs, riseth with the fleas.

Cruelty to dumb animals is one of the distinguishing vices of low and base minds. Wherever it is found, it is a certain mark of ignorance and meanness; a mark which all the external advantages of wealth, splendour, and nobility, cannot obliterate. It is consistent neither with learning nor true civility.

Well-lit streets discourage sin, but don't overdo it.

Straight is my path. Straight is my mind. Straight is my heart. Straight is my speech. Kind will I be to my brothers and sisters. Kind will I be to beast and bird.

Conscience was a devil that plagued the individual. Collectively, a people squashed it as easily as stepping on a daisy.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Straight is my path. Straight is my mind. Straight is my heart. Straight is my speech. Kind will I be to my brothers and sisters. Kind will I be to beast and bird. He

When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that.

All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.

1) There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. 2) An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. 3) (Therefore) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

The truth is, the best win-lost records are not built on great trial work. They are built on cherry-picking only the strongest cases for trial and pleading out the rest, regardless of the right and wrong of it.

There is an ancient rule: actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea—"the act does not create guilt unless the mind is also guilty." That is why we do not convict children, drunks, and schizophrenics: they are incapable of deciding to commit their crimes with a true understanding of the significance of their actions. Free will is as important to the law as it is to religion or any other code of morality. We do not punish the leopard for its wildness.

Every criminal is still a man, a complex of good and bad, fully deserving of our empathy and mercy.

Free will is as important to the law as it is to religion or any other code of morality. We do not punish the leopard for its wildness.