Quotes About Morality

All the great crimes of history, lest we forget, have their genesis in the moral wilderness of their times.

'Power Play' is a morality tale for our post-Enron world and - not incidentally - wildly entertaining. Nothing wrong with that.

One of the darkest evils of our world is surely the unteachable wildness of the Good.

If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.

Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword.

Socialism states that you owe me something simply because I exist. Capitalism, by contrast, results in a sort of reality-forced altruism: I may not want to help you, I may dislike you, but if I don't give you a product or service you want, I will starve. Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution.

I believe in karma; what you do will come back.

In order to do good, a man must be good; and he will not be good except he have instruction by counsel and by example.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'

William Andrews Clark was caught in a bribery scandal during a campaign for the U.S. Senate - he was said to describe the Montana legislators this way: 'I never bought a man who wasn't for sale.'

I always turn to Wendy Williams when there's any type of ethical or moral crisis in our country.

If I have to degrade myself or do something that I'm not willing to do as a Christian to get something, I'm just not willing to do it.

As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

Conservatives tend to see the world more in terms of good-versus-evil and, for some of them, the nightmare is a disarmed citizenry that can be preyed upon by criminals. They know that having a gun in the house would increase the risk of an accident for a member of their family, but they're willing to take that risk.

Conservatives are telling elected leaders that expansion of Medicaid comes at a moral - or more overtly, a political - price. At what price are they willing to go back on years of proclaiming 'socialized medicine' as the slippery slope to 'rationing of health care,' 'death panels' and other claims far too gruesome to mention in polite company?

In my view, the most damaging evils that are perpetrated upon us are through some abstract notion about good, where we're willing to sacrifice individuals in the present for some great vision of an improved or perfect future.

Being fundamentally decent and honest and willing to put others before yourself - that's necessary for being an effective policymaker.

The act of willing this or that, of choosing among various courses of conduct, is central in the realm of ethics.

I appeal to you, my friends, as mothers: are you willing to enslave your children? You stare back with horror and indignation at such questions. But why, if slavery is not wrong to those upon whom it is imposed?

Movies, TV, sports, come and go, but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don't see a whole lot of that any more.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway.