Quotes About Morality

Motive matters more with good deeds than it does with bad.

Civilisation, after all, is defined by what we forbid, more than what we permit.

This is why killing and stealing are wrong—not because a book tells us they are wrong, or a law tells us they are wrong, or a spiritual guide tells us they are wrong, but because if everyone did them we would not move toward the ultimate complexity that is God, with the rest of the universe.

Are we ever justified in what we do? That question ruined my sleep for a long time after I saw the tortured little mouse. When we act, even with the best of intentions, when we interfere with the world, we always risk a new disaster that mightn't be of our making, but that wouldn't occur without our action. Some of the worst wrongs, Karla once said, were caused by people who tried to change things.

Despotism despieses nothing so much as righteousness in its victims

You can't serve God with a gun.

Men are just men - it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone - the noblest man alive or the most wicked - has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion.

it's a very hard thing to resist, real goodness, in a tough man.

The wrong thing, for the right reasons.

Black money runs through the fingers faster than legal, hard-earned money. If we can't respect the way we earn it, money has no value. If we can't use it to make life better for our families and loved ones, money has no purpose.

Enough obedience will let people do just about anything to other people', I said. 'I like that answer,' Idriss said. Praise from the wise is the sweetest wine. I felt the warmth of it inside. 'Obedience is the assassin of conscience,' Idriss said softly, 'and that is why every lasting institution demands it.

we can only avoid chaos in the world of human affairs by having an agreed standard for the measure of a unit of morality.

We can compel men not to be bad, but we cannot compel them to be good

a man has to draw the line somewhere. Civilisation, after all, is defined by what we forbid, more than what we permit.

Sometimes it is necessary to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. The important thing is to be sure that our reasons are right, and that we admit the wrong—that we do not lie to ourselves, and convince ourselves that what we do is right?

it is possible to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.' He smiled again, for the first time since the story of the escape had begun. 'This will come back to us, at another time. I have raised it in this way because it is a very important point about how we do live our lives, and how we should live our lives.

The simple fact is that fighting to save a life is a better and more enduring reason than fighting to end one.

never knew a tough man who preyed on the weak. Tough men hate bullies almost as much as bullies hate tough men.

is possible to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

La cosa sbagliata... per un motivo giusto.

We can compel men not to be bad, but we cannot compel them to be good, don't you find?

Money isn't the root of all evil. Evil is the root of all money. There's no such thing as clean money. All the money in the world is dirty, in some way, because there's no clean way to make it. If you get paid in money, somebody, somewhere, is suffering for it. That's one of the reasons, I think, why just about everybody--even people who'd never break the law in any other way--is happy to add an extra buck or two to their money on the black market.

Money isn't the root of all evil. Evil is the root of all money. There's no such thing as clean money. All the money in the world is dirty, in some way, because there's no clean way to make it.

prevents it is evil. And if we want to know if something is good or evil—something like war and killing and smuggling guns to mujaheddin guerrillas, for example—then we ask the questions: What if everyone did this thing? Would that help us, in this bit of the universe, to get there, or would it hold us back? And then we have a pretty good idea whether it's good or evil. What's more important, we know why it's good or evil.