Quotes About Morality

Every evil starts with 15 volts.

It's not a question of getting more moral soldiers. Instead it's a question of recognizing how the situation of war (and the cultural institutions/practices of the military that we have designed to "prepare" people for that situation) creates monsters out of us all.

People are less rational than they are adept at rationalizing--explaining away discrepancies between their private morality and actions contrary to it.

Any deed, for good or evil, that any human being has ever done, you and I could also do--given the same situational forces.

All evil begins with fifteen volts.

Instead of extinguishing in the heart of men the essential and natural love for themselves, morality should use it to show them the interest in being good, human, sociable, and trustworthy: far from wanting to destroy the passions inherent in his nature, morality will lead him to virtue, without which no man on earth can ever enjoy true happiness.

In other words, it makes no difference whether one believes in God. As there is no way of proving or disproving the object of this belief, it remains a personal choice, much like a preference for a particular dish or for strong coffee. You may believe what you want, as long as it helps you live. This

Anyone who thinks about it can see that for human beings the teaching and following of morality is something necessary.

I do not have the preconceptions of the bigot, and I have more faith in mankind than I do in a morality in which everything is proscribed.

To be a hero is honourable; not to be one is not necessarily dishonourable.

Dis Papa, c'est quoi le mal? C'est la bêtise des hommes qui parfois vont se perdre Dans de sentiers de pierre Et prennent des cailloux pour les lancer en l'air

En me disant ces mots, j'ai compris soudain combien cela sonnait comme un danger, et que, être innocent au milieu des coupables, c'était en somme la même chose que d'être coupable au milieu des innocents.

Les hommes sont bizarres. Ils commettent le pire sans trop se poser de questions, mais ensuite, ils ne peuvent plus vivre avec le souvenir de ce qu'ils ont fait.

Rien n'est tout noir, ni tout blanc, c'est le gris qui gangne. Les hommes et leurs âmes, c'est pareil... T'es une âme grise, joliment grise, comme nous tous...

As pessoas bondosas desaparecem depressa. Toda a gente gosta muito delas, a morte também. Só os patifes são resistentes. Esses, em geral, morrem velhos e por vezes na própria cama. Em paz.

Ik heb nog nooit een schoft of een heilige gezien. De dingen zijn nooit helemaal zwart of helemaal wit, alles is grijs. Mensen en hun zielen ook… Je ziel is grijs, behoorlijk grijs, zoals die van ons allemaal…

GARY: Speaking of pain and blood, did you read about the artist who raised all these frogs in his apartment and released them outside a school in New York City? ANDY: That was a slaughter. Inhumane. I heard he got charged with animal cruelty. The members of PETA want long jail time. Why should a frog's life be any less than a human life? GARY: Well the answer is simple: they don't consume goods and contribute to the economy.

Maupassant is a man of mitigating circumstances, the lawyer who can bring the jurors around by demonstrating that they too could have committed such a crime. We are all murderers.

Take the high road, there's a lot less traffic up there.

If modernist naturalism were true, there would be no objective truth outside of science. In that case right and wrong would be a matter of cultural preference, or political power, and the power already available to modernists ideologies would be overwhelming.

Materialism sets us free from sin-by proving that there is no such thing as sin. There's just antisocial behavior, which we can control with measures like laws and educational programs.

noble cause after all; maybe we were fighting against a cruel and vicious enemy that was in the service of an aggressive, hateful ideology with designs on enslaving other peoples and other countries; maybe—just maybe—we were doing the right thing.

Some might have opposed the war because they were isolationists. But America's bipartisan, postwar consensus was that we had a responsibility to contain Communist aggression. In any event, the anti-war protesters liked to assume they represented a higher morality, and it would be hard to square isolationism with idealism. At best, one might call it naïve; at worst, short-sighted and selfish.

Fornicating is like parenting: no matter how you do it, you have the guilty sense that somewhere other people are doing it more correctly.