Quotes About Morality

Leibniz invented the term "theodicy" (in its French and Latin forms) to mean the justification of God's ways to man—or, as an unbeliever might put it, the art of making excuses on behalf of God. Among

For my part, if a man must needs be a knave I would have him a debonair knave... It makes your sin no worse as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly.

He who fight monsters must take care that he doesn't become one himself.

For all men are equal at the moment of death and who are we to judge them when a much greater judge awaits?

You're trying to tell me that everything you've done is for a good cause. You think that all this killing is worth it because of the results. I'm not sure I agree. Lots of people work for charity; lots of people want to change the world. But they don't have to behave like you.

We all make choices, Cossack. Who we are in this world, what we do in it. Generous or selfish. Happy or sad. Good or evil. It's all down to choice.

The greatest evil occurs when people, no matter what their aims or their motives, become utterly convinced that they are right.

Let me ask you a question, Alex. What do you think is the greatest evil on this planet today?" "Is that including or not including you?" Alex asked.

Evil will never win entirely. It can't. It's not in its nature.

know you're only doing your job, Mr Hawthorne, and you don't really care how you get your results. I was there when you were giving your talk and it struck me then that you have absolutely no heart at all. You don't believe in the law.

Have we killed everyone who needs killing?

It's easy enough to change your personality, to become evil. The trouble is, it stays with you. And it damages you.

he was going to kick someone down a flight of stairs, of course it would be a paedophile. It reminded me of his behaviour when we had visited Raymond Clunes.

And she had just signed a major deal with Walt Disney, including a strict morality clause that, almost certainly, prohibited the act of murder.

What?' I couldn't believe what he had just said. 'She's faking being blind?' It was one of the most disgusting things I'd ever heard.

How it is the small lies and evasions which nobody sees or detects but which can come together and smother you like the fumes in a house fire.

There was something deeply offensive about turning a tiny incident, a tragedy in an English village, into some sort of Mills & Boon morality tale, and reading it, I felt less bad about her review of Mindgame.

You wanted sex. You were cheating on your wife. And because of that, a child died.

if you surrounded murder with enough forms and procedures, if you could convince yourself that it was an absolute necessity, then ultimately it would not be murder at all.

He was just going to have to cheat.

wanted to remind myself just how terrible it was: the awful language, the use of clichés, its near-pornographic relish. The books must have made Dawn Adams a ton of money, and as I'd learned from my time with Hawthorne, money and murder have a way of going hand in hand.

I controlled him and made sure that I pressed all the right buttons for a young audience. He didn't smoke. He didn't swear. He didn't have a gun. And he certainly wasn't homophobic.

Man was a complicated animal capable of extraordinary good and great evil – but he was definitely on his own.

Let me ask you a question Alex. What do you think is the greatest evil on this plant today?" "Is that including, or not including you?