Quotes About Morality

Although these days we commonly talk, hear, or read about 'ethical dilemmas' --- those difficult situations in which we truly are perplexed as to the right course of action --- it is crucial to recognize that these dilemmas, for most of us, represent the exception and not the rule in our lives...What typically is the rule in our daily lives is not a matter of knowing what is right and good but having the character to do what is right and good.

A moral code was good for the Chinese whose inferior natures required such artificial means of restraint.

He hated the idea of killing people he could not hate.

Although he claimed not to understand matters of human conscience, it was precisely his own conscience that led him to question the status quo, and which would cost

He sat perfectly still, studying his hands in his lap. "I know it is a stupid idea to design a weapon that will refuse to kill," he said. "But maybe I could make the killing not so much fun.

The winter before he was sixteen, Pup sold his soul to the devil.

I wondered if there were planets where it's okay to murder people. I decided there must be, reminding myself that in war, after all, killers are heroes.

I wasn't sure I knew any longer what was right and what was wrong. It was a very precarious feeling, but it hinted at a sense of liberation like I'd never experienced. Liberation from the countless little hassles of everyday life. It was as if the border between 'me' and 'not me' was dissolving, leaving me in a sort of slush. I was going somewhere I'd never been before.

True decadence wasn't anything carnal; it was about sacrificing the powerless minority for the sake of the majority.

No one gets drunk in order to raise their moral standards.

A journalist can not be a cynic, can not forget his humanity and that of the people he meets

every evil thing has its defenders, because everywhere there are those whom evil sustains, for whom it is an opportunity, life itself.

Prefiero, señor, obrar bien y fracasar, antes que triunfar con malas artes. Palabras de Neoptólemo a Odiseo, en la tragedia griega Filoctetes.

Si tratas de curar la maldad con maldad, sumarás más dolor a tu destino.

Hasta los más hábiles hombres caen, e ignominiosa es su caída cuando en bello ropaje ocultan infames palabras para servir a su avaricia.

Mas o homem que nos atos e palavras se deixa dominar por vão orgulho sem recear a obra da justiça e não cultua propriamente os deuses está fadado a doloroso fim, vítima da arrogância criminosa que o induziu a desmedidos ganhos, a sacrilégios, à loucura máxima de profanar até as coisas santas.

The ethical expression for what Abraham did is that he meant to murder Isaac; the religious expression is that he meant to sacrifice Isaac—but precisely in this contradiction is the anxiety that can make a person sleepless, and yet without this anxiety Abraham is not who he is.

a bad conscience is indeed able to make life interesting.

For as the Good is only a single thing, so all ways lead to the Good, even the false ones: when the repentant one follows the same way back.

On principle' a man can do anything, take part in anything and himself remain inhuman and indeterminate. 'On principle' a man may interest himself in the founding of a brothel, and the same man can 'on principle' assist in the publication of a new Hymn book because it is supposed to be the great need of the times. But it would be as unjustifiable to conclude from the first fact that he was debauched as it would, perhaps, be to conclude from the second that he read or sang hymns.

The person who lives in the ethical sphere lives intentionally, intensively. Such a person possesses character and conviction, and is thus willing to sacrifice himself for something greater than oneself.

Al?ii sunt virtuo?i ziua ?i p?c?tuiesc noaptea;eu ziua sunt pur? prefec?torie,iar noaptea sunt numai dorin?e.

Is this the same teaching, when Christ says to the rich young man, Sell all that thou hast, and give it to the poor; and when the priest says, Sell all that thou hast and...give it to me?

On principle' one can do anything and what one does is, fundamentally, a matter of indifference, just as a man's life remains insignificant even though 'on principle' he gives his support to all the 'needs of the times.