Quotes About Morality

Self denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity.

Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.

One should always play fair when one has the winning cards.

What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.

[T]hough of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something.

History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.

About foxhunting: The unspeakable chasing the uneatable.

As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

Chastity is the greatest form of perversion.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same thing. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.

Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.

The English public takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral.

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

Sex has become more and more attractive because of its condemnation by priests.

Power is when you have every justification to kill someone, and then you don't.

Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are.

You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to "clear the numberless ascensions"* in about two minutes.

These three things always work together— moral intelligence, the spontaneous originality of the Holy Spirit, and the setting of a life lived in communion with God.

Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it.