Quotes About Morality

The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its essence is romantic beauty.

Of the many things Lucy was noticing today, not the least remarkable was this: this ghoulish fashion in which respectable people will nibble after blood.

There is no harm in deceiving society as long as she does not find you out, because it is only when she finds you out that you have harmed her; she is not like a friend or God, who are injured by the mere existence of unfaithfulness.

The conversation had become unreal since Christianity had entered it. Ronny approved of religion as long as it endorsed the National Anthem, but he objected when it attempted to influence his life.

Maurice was scandalized, horrified. He was shocked to the bottom of his suburban soul....

Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible. I dislike the stuff. I do not believe in it, for its own sake, at all... My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul. My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in the Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted. My motto is 'Lord, I disbelieve — help thou my unbelief.

Belief's always right.. It's all right and it's also unmistakable. Every man has somewhere about him some belief for which he'd die. Only isn't it improbable that your parents and guardians told it to you? If there is one won't it be part of your own flesh and spirit?

Something had changed. He had journeyed—as on rare occasions a man must—till he stood behind right and wrong. On the banks of the grey torrent of life, love is the only flower.

Nothing's the same for anyone. That's why life's this Hell, if you do a thing you're damned, and if you don't you're damned—

Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.

He hadn't a God, he hadn't a lover – the two usual incentives to virtue.

O escritor americano Philip Roth, falecido neste maio de 2018, insistia que a literatura não é o "concurso de beleza moral" em que hoje se tenta transformá-la a golpes de politicamente correto, inclusão social e análogos.

But the lovers get away unpunished and consequently recommend crime.

Not even to herself dare she blame Helen. She could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was everything or nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse than stealing, and group most sins in an order all must approve, but it cannot group Helen. The surer its pronouncements on this point, the surer may we be that morality is not speaking. Christ was evasive when they questioned Him. It is those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first stone.

Unless a sentence paid a few compliments to Justice and Morality in passing, its grammar wounded their ears and paralysed their minds.

Where there is money and no inclination to violence, tragedy cannot be generated.

She was silent. This cruel, vicious fellow knew of strange refinements. The horrible truth, that wicked people are capable of love, stood naked before her, and her moral being was abashed.

the actual deed of sex seemed to him unimaginative, and best veiled in night. Between men it is inexcusable, between man and woman it may be practised since nature and society approve, but never discussed nor vaunted.

People lost their humanity, and took values as arbitrary as those in a pack of playing-cards.

The sense of purity is a puzzling and at times a fearful thing. It seems so noble, and it starts as one with morality. But it is a dangerous guide, and can lead us away not only from what is gracious, but also from what is good.

I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

Truth is not mathematical concept that needs to be proved with equations. Its singleness demands an intact moral compass, with certainties about what is good and bad.

Tanr?'y?, hepimizi seven, sevimli bir dede olarak tasavvur etmek varken niye asab? bozuk, ürkütücü, sürekli bizi izleyen bir ahlak bekçisi olarak hayal ederler? Bu onlar? sadece mutsuz ederken...

When morality is exiled from public life and isolated in the private spaces of the individual, to be enjoyed only at certain times in our day, how can we know with any certainty that shame and mercy are shared concepts? and how can we convince people not to commit evil in those realms of public life from which law enforcement is absent.