Quotes About Morality

When we ask, "Is the fetus a person?" we are asking the same sort of limiting, self-justifying question that the lawyer asked Jesus: "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus, by answering the lawyer's question with this parable, rejects casuistic attempts to circumscribe our moral concern by defining the other as belonging to a category outside the scope of our obligation.

As great-grandchildren of the Enlightenment, we like to think of ourselves as free moral agents, choosing rationally among possible actions, but Scripture unmasks that cheerful illusion and teaches us that we are deeply infected by the tendency to self-deception.

First, we should guard against falling into a habit of reading New Testament ethical texts in one mode only. If we read the New Testament and find only laws, we are obviously enmeshed in grave hermeneutical distortion. Likewise, if we read the New Testament and find only timeless moral principles, we are probably guilty, as Barth warned, of evading Scripture's specific claims upon our lives.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.

Blaze himself was pretty sure he himself was going to hell, as were most other people. It was a dirty world, and the longer you lived, the dirtier you got.

Of two duties we must choose the greater, though of two sins we must choose neither (556).

What else is the law made for, but to be the rule of life, and the rule of judgment? Read Psal. i. and xv.; Matt. v. vii. and xxv.,

Oh! what a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience(93)!

Good ends will not justify evil actions. What

Most "necessary evils" are far more evil than necessary.

There have been times when I could have succumbed to some form of bribe, or could have had my way by offering one. But ever since that night in Dover prison I have never been tempted to break my vow.. My Parents always drummed into me that all you have life is your reputation: you may be very rich, but if you lose your good name you'll never be happy.

Never do anything if it means you can't sleep at night.' It's a good rule to follow.

Never do anything if it means you can't sleep at night.

These values do not come cheap. These values must be paid for.

Be just before you're generous.

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

Honesty is a good thing, but it comes in different flavors. Honesty about our feelings is sincerity. Honesty about our intentions is candor. But suppose our feelings or intentions are childish or evil. What then do we gain by expressing or allowing them? The most important form of honesty, especially in a leader, is determining the right course of action and forthrightly pursuing it.

Lincoln had a stubborn concern for first principles.

Integrity is the essence of everything successful.

the naive forms of Christian moral motivation - bare threats of hell and the bribery of heaven - stunt moral growth by ensuring believers remain emotional children, never achieving the cognitive moral development of adults. Psychologists have established that mature adults are moral not because of bare threats and bribes (that stage of moral development typifies children, not adults), but because they care about the effects their behavior has on themselves and others.

Ethics and Science need to shake hands.

Chinese are noted for their aphorisms and proverbs, and they and Indians find great sources of humor in parables, which we in the West find only moderately funny, although they do combine wisdom, moralizing and a sense of perspective

Christ... did not come on earth to be a conqueror or a philosopher, or a mere teacher of morality. He came to save sinners. He came to do that which man could never do for himself - to do that which money and learning can never obtain - to do that which is essential to man's real happiness. He came to 'take away sin'.