Quotes About Morality

Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand-from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: 'How can I be good?' and 'How can I do something good?' Instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: 'What is the will of God?

It is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie.

Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.

The limitation of the ethical phenomenon to its place and time does not imply its rejection but, on the contrary, its validation. One does not use canons to shoot sparrows.

a false faith is capable of terrible and monstrous things.

In short, it is much easier to see a thing through from the point of view of abstract principle than from that of concrete responsibility.

If we would answer the question of the existence of the Evil then we would not be sinners, we could make something else responsible.

May we be enabled to say "No" to sin and "Yes" to the sinner.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The source of a Christian ethic is not the reality of one's own self, not the reality of the world, nor is it the reality of norms and values. It is the reality of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ.

Human beings have freedom toward death and the right to death, in the sense of sacrifice, but only when the good sought through sacrifice, and not the destruction of one's own life, is the reason for risking one's life.

Total war uses every conceivable means toward the end of national self-preservation. Everything is right and permitted that serves the cause of one's own people.

But to procrastinate and prevaricate simply because you're afraid of erring, when others — I mean our brethren in Germany — must make infinitely more difficult decisions every day, seems to me almost to run counter to love. To delay or fail to make decisions may be more sinful than to make wrong decisions out of faith and love." (Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, 218)

Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand—from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: "How can I be good?" and "How can I do something good?"[2] Instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: what is the will of God?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This saying, which is found in a broad variety of lands, does not arise from the brash worldly wisdom of an incorrigible. It instead reveals deep Christian insight.

responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live.

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience. —

Anti-Semitism was clearly not just anti-Christian and immoral but also quite foolish.

pride (superbia) is not only by itself our primal sin: it also inwardly contaminates all intrinsically good dispositions and robs every virtue of its value before God.

On the other hand, every virtue and every good deed turns worthless if pride creeps into it - which happens whenever in some fashion we glory in our goodness.

Someone who has managed to build up a great fortune may look back at his achievements with some satisfaction, reflecting proudly, "I am a rich man." But he would do well to reflect, too, on the extent to which those riches are based on lies, deceit, and the overriding of others' interests—negative actions that in the long run will only engender suffering.

There is a legitimate argument over whether the death penalty effectively deters violent crime, although my personal observation is that not one of the criminals who have been executed over the years has ever killed again.