Quotes About Morality

Just Jim Casy now. Ain't got the call no more. Got a lot of sinful idears—but they seem kinda sensible.

Liza hated alcoholic liquors with an iron zeal. Dribking alcohol in any form she regarded as a crime against a properly outraged diety. Not only would she not touch it herself, but she resisted its enjoyment by anyone else. The result naturally was that her husband Samuel and all her children had a good lusty love for a drink.

Mi è sempre sembrato strano, disse il Dottore. Le cose che ammiriamo negli uomini, la bontà, la generosità, la franchezza, l'onestà, la saggezza e la sensibilità, sono in noi elementi che portano alla rovina. E le caratteristiche che detestiamo, la furberia, la cupidigia, l'avarizia, la meschinità, l'egoismo, portano al successo. E mentre gli uomini ammirano le prime di queste qualità, amano il risultato delle seconde.

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence.

I believe that there is only one story in the world... Humans are caught in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hunger and ambitions in their avarice and cruelty and in their kindness and generosity too-- in a net of good and evil. A man after he has brushed off the dust and chips of life, will have left only the hard clean questions: was it good or was it evil? Have I done well or ill?

Wisht I knowed what all the sins was, so I could do 'em.

Fella in business got to lie an' cheat, but he calls it somepin else. That's what's important. You go steal that tire an' you're a thief, but he tried to steal your four dollars for a busted tire. They call that sound business.

I ain't never done nothin' that wasn't part sin.

For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism— either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. This last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.

The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing.

timshel—'Thou mayest'—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if 'Thou mayest'—it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.' Don't you

The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal. There was sorrow in Kino's rage, but this last thing had tightened him beyond breaking.

Lee's voice said, "I know that sometimes a lie is used in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost. That's a running sore.

devil. And this was a shame, for Samuel was a laughing man, but I guess Samuel was wide open to the devil.

And, as with all retold tales that are in people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between anywhere.

Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue, we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world. We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

To a criminal, honesty is foolish.

I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape.

Para cometer una mala acción hay que anhelar algo

They might call him a watchman but he was a pimp—a dirty pimp, the lowest thing in the world. And then he thought how he had a right to live and be happy just like anyone else, by God he had.

You go steal that tire an' you're a thief, but he tried to steal your four dollars for a busted tire. They call that sound business.

Got a lot of sinful idears- but they seem kinda sensible

When any of his girls became pregnant they had the choice of leaving or of being aborted so brutally that a fair proportion died. In spite of this the girls usually chose abortion.