Quotes About Morality

Satan is an individualist. He upsets the commandments of Heaven which enforce a definite moral conduct. He inspires us with dreams and hopes. He endows us with bitterness and discontent, but in the end he leads us to the Better, and thus mainly serves the Good. He is that 'force that strives for evil yet causes the good.

Self-regarding considerations can be as universalizable as other-regarding considerations: we owe things to ourselves as well to others

The boundary of your state is not the boundary of your moral concern.

Destroying the painting was out of the question: my soul is all stained and shagged with sin like a cigarette smoker's moustache but I am quite incapable of destroying works of art. Steal them, yes, cheerfully, it is a mark of respect and love, but destroy them, never.

The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. You people with hearts, he said, have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful.

People often do a good deed without hope of reward, but for an evil deed they always demand payment.

it is always wise to do one's duty, however unpleasant that duty may seem to be. -Ozma

It is possible for any man, by good deeds, to enshrine himself as a Saint in the hearts of the people.

The reason most people are bad is because they do not try to be good.

Without knowing it the girl was arguing on the side of the world's expert criminologists, who hold that to destroy an offender cannot benefit society so much as to redeem him.

No one has the right to destroy any living creatures, however evil they may be, or to hurt them or make them unhappy. I will not fight, even to save my kingdom.

Because the Nome King intends to do evil is no excuse for my doing the same

The reason most people are bad is because they do not try to be good. Now, the Nome King had never tried to be good, so he was very bad indeed.

Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious? But I've never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No; hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I'll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for.

The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. You people with hearts, he said, have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much.

I think you are a very good tiger, said Dorothy, patting the huge head of the beast. In that you are mistaken, was the reply. I am a good beast, perhaps, but a disgracefully bad tiger. For it is the nature of tigers to be cruel and ferocious, and in refusing to eat harmless living creatures I am acting as no good tiger has ever before acted. That is why I left the forest and joined my friend the Cowardly Lion.

The reason most people are bad is because they do not try to be good. L. Frank Baum, The Emerald City of Oz, 1910

I wouldn't ask anyone to take this dreadful form, said Woot; it wouldn't be right, you know. I've been a monkey for some time, now, and I don't like it. It makes me ashamed to be a beast of this sort when by right of birth I'm a boy; so I'm sure it would be wicked to ask anyone else to take my place. They

It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable.

I do not know, my friend. It seems wrong somehow that the success of a race be measured by its ability to do violence.

I have a troubled relationship with Hunter S. Thompson, not just because he kicked me out of a bar but also because it's become clear to me that he was not a good person.

Religion is not man's relationship to God, it is man's relationship to man.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Hell must be a pretty swell spot, because the guys that invented religion have sure been trying hard to keep everybody else out.