Quotes About Morality

The court is resplendent; Yet the fields are overgrown. The granaries are empty; Yet some wear elegant clothes; Fine swords dangle at their sides; They are stuffed with food and drink; And possess wealth in gross abundance. This is known as taking pride in robbery. Far is this from the Way!

It was a shameful thing that she had nothing of which to be ashamed.

Plato argued that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will always find a way around law. By pretending that procedure will get rid of corruption, we have succeeded only in humiliating honest people and provided a cover of darkness and complexity for the bad people. There is a scandal here, but it's not the result of venal bureaucrats. (1994) p. 99

Um bom polícia continua a ser um bom polícia, mesmo que seja um sacana nazi.

It seems to me that lawyers can justify almost anything to themselves as long as it's legal. But you can make anything legal when you put a gun to parliament's head.

Yes indeed, I thought, a neat piece of theatre. I was going to enjoy putting these people away. You can sometimes forgive a man who works a line, but not the ones who prey on the grief and suffering of others. That was like stealing the cushions off a pair of crutches.

When you're working for people who are mostly thieves and murderers, a little of it comes off on your hands now and then.

I had a moral tutor, but never saw him (the only words of his I remember are 'The three pleasures of life -drinking, smoking, and masturbation')

Everything in him is absorbed by a single, exclusive interest, by a total concept, a total passion—revolution. In the depths of his being not only in words but in action he has sundered any connection with the civil order and with the entire educated world and with all the laws, proprieties, conventions, and morality of this world. He is—its merciless enemy, and if he continues to live in it, then it is only in order the more certainly to destroy it.

I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.

We don't need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.

I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.

I don't think we are cut out to be evil sorcerers, brothers," said Fentongoose. "If we were truly evil, we would not feel such sorrow at the deaths of our friends. We would just go, 'Ha! Ha! Ha!' or something.

Psychological man may be going nowhere, but he aims to achieve a certain speed and certainty in going. Like his predecessor, the man of the market economy, he understands morality as that which is conducive to increased activity. The important thing is to keep going.

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off the belief it inspires is what counts.

If we wish to be good, we must first believe that we are bad.

Who touches money touches dirt; and the less religion has to do with it, the better.

Some people have a great sense of moral responsibility; unfortunately, it's backed up with a poor sense of musical taste. Other people have great musical ability, and very little sense of moral responsibility. It's very difficult to have a good balance. —Eric Clapton

The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.

Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.

Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse.

We can assume that most people, most of the time, are moral creatures. But imagine that this morality is like a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral. When that happens, morality is disengaged. If the car happens to be on an incline, car and driver move precipitously downhill. It is then the nature of the circumstances that determines outcomes, not the driver's skills or intentions.

I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?

We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil.