Quotes About Morality

Interference with personal liberty for opinions is immoral, for every man has a right to his own opinions and a right to express them; and interference with the liberty of A is only lawful when A has violated the rights of B, and then one interference must exactly balance the other. When an idea takes the knife like Lady Macbeth, it has on its hands a dye which all the perfumes of Araby cannot efface. It has defied morality, and, as its penalty, morality delivers it over to impotence.

Evil is the rejection of the infinite for the finite.

There is not a single right to be discovered without a duty from which it springs.

If we are creatures of God, we are morally bound to accomplish our destiny, and we have a right to do so freely, and to resist to the uttermost, as immoral, every assault made upon it. Admit duty as the basis of right, and every difficulty vanishes. Seek a rational basis of right, and you are precipitated into despotism or inconsequence.

Even a cricket knows the difference between a man and an angel; For a man looks not at the ground whereon he walks, he crushes many a life; While the passing of an angel leaves all the world a-thrill.

They can vote for every possible war that comes along and still be "pro-life," while a levy that applies only to the vast fortunes left by the richest 1 percent of Americans when a spousal exemption is claimed is the "death tax.

He is as weak as a bent flaxstalk, and to be weak is to be wicked.

We may be as good as we please, if we please to be good.

Some people just need killing.

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.

The only words worth repeating are from the Old Testament or Oscar Wilde.

I am frankly sick and tired of the political preachers telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

Fable has strong shoulders that carry far more truth than fact can.

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one's own culture but within oneself.

You won't even know you've crossed the line until it's way back in your rearview mirror.

He had to do it in secret. He didn't want people to think he was buying forgiveness or understanding. Those two things should not be for sale, at any price.

Is it morally permissible to take the money of a Republican union member, for example, and spend it on behalf of a Democrat?

bullshit might help you get to the top, but it won't keep you there.

But clearly, the lesson is that incentives can be a dangerous weapon. A critic of this research might say that the problem is not incentives, but dumb incentives. No doubt, some incentives are dumber than others. But no incentives can ever be smart enough to substitute for people who do the right thing because it's the right thing.

How can you compete, being honor bred, with one who, were it proved he lies, were neither shamed in his own nor his neighbor's eyes?

But that sacred hunger we spoke of justifies all.

No latitude makes any difference to what men will do to other men, whether for gain or in the name of justice.

The clause "whose inside is not like his outside" is used elsewhere in the Talmud (b. Yoma "The Day" 72b) to indicate a person who puts on a nice show for others that does not conform to his inner, true self—a morally deceptive person in other words.