Quotes About Morality

He'd sit and listen to Nana's Jesus stories all day, but when she turned to the Old Testament prophets, Louis Valentine's little face would darken. He said, "I hate it when God is mean!

Frederick Ward thought novels immoral and had been known to leave the room rather than subject himself to "bohemian" opinions.

We may say that morality, as well as good sense, is the best distributed thing in the world, for all think themselves so well endowed with both that even those who are hardest to please in everything else do not usually desire more of them than they possess.

Far from favouring 'small government', the Victorians systematically intervened in all areas of public and private life, and not just in those such as morality that the term 'Victorian values' suggests. The extent of Victorian social legislation was impressive

It concerns the point at which courage is the logical and sometimes the only possible outcome of integrity.

There comes a time when one must take the position that it is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because his conscience tells him it is right.

These equalizing mechanisms may derive from simple morality, or they may come from the practical understanding that losers, if they are unable to get out of the game of success to the successful, and if they have no hope of winning, could get frustrated enough to destroy the playing field.

Escalation in morality can lead to holier-than-thou sanctimoniousness.

There can be as many wrong reasons to do the right thing as there are stars in the sky. There might even be more than one legitimate right reason. But there is never a right reason to do the wrong thing. Not ever.

Only the good deserve to hope.

Our students sometimes use their creativity to do wrong things, and we therefore conclude that we must keep them from being creative. But evil cannot be blamed on creativity. (p31)

God does not hold our environment accountable for our behavior; he holds us accountable. (p79)

An it harm none, do what ye will.

Killing an animal to make a coat is sin. It wasn't meant to be, and we have no right to do it. A woman gains status when she refuses to see anything killed to be put on her back. Then she's truly beautiful.

There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best.

We believe at once in evil, we only believe in good upon reflection. Is this not sad

Some people are just like that, Abigail. If it's good for them, then it's good. If it's bad for them, then it's bad. They rearrange morality to suit their ambitions. Nat simply

People don't do right because of the fear of God or love of him. You do the right thing because the world doesn't make sense if you don't." (145)

People don't do right because of the fear of God or love of him. You do right because the world doesn't make sense if you don't.

His eyes were intense. "I hate killers. I want the world to be a good place, a safe place. For me and my wife and my friends, and my kids when I have them. I guess that's why I'm a policeman. To help make one little corner of the world a safer place.

God put us here to go through this kind of mental gymnastics, and He certainly put us here to enjoy our sexual lives. He put us here to ask, to try and find out the best way possible to live with our neighbors. Of course, you can go through a life not asking, and that's the tragedy: so many lives lived in moral blindness.

The strong could make their own law, live their own lives; in fact, they were beyond good and evil. What was good and what was evil? It is easy enough to stifle conscience for a time. The satisfied flesh has its own law.

I believe in doing the thing you feel is right. If it looks right, it is right.

evil is, after all, only a deficiency of goodness.