Quotes About Morality

Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything

Unlike some other religions, we have never felt it served a higher purpose to lie to children about geology.

The corrupt and blood-smeared fingerprints of the past must be wiped away to create a clean space for the morally pure generation that is surely about to arrive. Such is the theory.

What are we do to? The child sex trade is not for us: our children are unattractive and rude, and - due to the knowledge of our history - have a bad habit of mugging prospective customers and shoving them over cliffs.

At our school, pink was for spring and summer, plum was for fall and winter, white was for special days: Sundays and celebrations. Arms covered, hair covered, skirts down to the knee before you were five and no more than two inches above the ankle after that, because the urges of men were terrible things and those urges needed to be curbed.

people believed, then, that Culture could make you better – a better person. They believed it could uplift you, or the women believed it. They hadn't yet seen Hitler at the opera house.

Is extreme goodness always weak? Can a person be good only in the absence of power? The Tempest asks us these questions. There is of course another kind of strength, which is the strength of goodness to resist evil; a strength that Shakespeare's audience would have understood well. But that kind of strength is not much on display in The Tempest. Gonzalo is simply not tempted. He doesn't have to say no to a sinfully rich dessert, because he's never offered one.

I am not scoffing at goodness, which is far more difficult to explain than evil, and just as complicated. But sometimes it's hard to put up with.

Why were the bad people doing that? Because of Money. Money was invisible, like Fuck. They thought that Money was their helper; they thought he was a better helper than Fuck. But they were wrong about that. Money was not their helper. Money goes away just when you need it. But Fuck is very loyal.

The liver is evil and must be punished.

Sex is like drink, it's bad to start brooding about it too early in the day.

The doctors, the dentists, the lawyers, the accountants: in the new world of Gilead, as in the old, their sins are frequently forgiven them.

I walk away from her, guilt on my hands, absolving myself: I'm a good person. She could have been dying. No one else stopped. I'm a fool, to confuse this with goodness. I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly

The penalty for rape, as you know, is death. Deuteronomy 22:23–29. I

Language is not morally neutral because the human brain is not neutral in its desires. Neither is the dog brain. Neither is the bird brain: crows hate owls. We like some things and dislike others, we approve of some things and disapprove of others. Such is the nature of being an organism.

He can see the point of venison, of killing to eat, but to have a cut-off head on your wall? What does it prove, except that a deer can't pull a trigger?

Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.

How easy it is to invent humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.

Bearing false witness was not the exception, it was common. Beneath its outer show of virtue and purity, Gilead was rotting.

A rebuke, a palpable rebuke! How dare she? He was already middle-aged when she was born! He could have been her father! He could have been her child molester!

Who can fathom the secrets of the human soul?" I said. "None of us is exempt from sin.

La grandeza está en la virtud, no en la venganza

He just tarted up his misdemeanours and made them look respectable

Suppose I told you about the income from body parts? Organs, bones, DNA, whatever's in demand. That's one of the big earners for this place.