Quotes About Morality

The reaction to 'Aftermath' has been far worse than to 'A Life's Work,' yet I find I'm perhaps a little less touched by it. In both cases, I've coped artistically by believing the criticisms weren't right. They upset me, but they didn't challenge my understanding of how to write, nor of how morality functions in literature.

Success in crime always invites to worse deeds.

If you took some famous religious leader, for example, and said it would be nice to clone them indefinitely so you have a dynasty of leaders, my own guess would be that each time the cloning takes place, they would become more and more defective, presumably mentally defective and subsequently worse.

Morally, the world is both better and worse than it was. We are worse off than in the middle ages, or the 17th and 18th centuries, in that we have the atomic menace.

The only thing worse than an active conscience is one that's retroactive.

You can make a very good argument that society would be much worse off if you let 10 rapists and murderers free rather than put one poor, wrongly accused accountant in prison. And so my only point on that is that it should open up an argument. It should not sort of settle one, because nobody disagrees with it.

We should reserve the notion of 'morality' for the ways in which we can affect one another's experience for better or worse. Some people use the term 'morality' differently, of course, but I think we have a scientific responsibility to focus the conversation so as to make it most useful.

Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.

Islam's basic principles of belief, worship, morality, and behavior are not affected by changing times. Islam does not propose a certain unchangeable form of government or attempt to shape it. Islam has never offered nor established a theocracy in its name.

If you impose morality on people, they will find ways to circumvent their guilt. They will make offerings to temples - or other places of worship - but also continue doing things that make them feel guilty.

There is no moral equivalency between those who would kill using children, innocent civilians, children and adults, in their homes and in their places of worship, to that of a government that is seeking those terrorists before they can engage in that awful activity.

It may sound crazy to people, but I don't follow any spiritual leader or worship at any house of God. I just feel you should be good to people around you, your family and friends.

For a long time on Earth humans didn't worship good gods; that's a new idea. The ancient Greek gods, the Hindu gods, are fairly amoral, most of them. We get stuck when we insist that God be both good and all-powerful.

I worry about the very pernicious way we elevate and separate ourselves from other beasts, the way we rationalize our comfort and ease, our worship of the self, as healthy. It's enticing, but with a terrible taint of evil.

The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.

The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.

None of us wants to be judged by our worst act on our worst day, and we consistently judge Burr for that. He was not a perfect man, but he's not a villain. He's a dude, just a guy.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.

A lie with a purpose is one of the worst kind, and the most profitable.

We all have them, those parts of us that are the greatest parts of us and the worst parts of us. Sometimes we're put in circumstances and bad choices are made.

Needless to say, oftentimes a 'religion' is not needed to breed extremism. People breed it all by themselves, oftentimes with the subjective morality of modern secularism breeding the worst kind.

Those who appear the most sanctified are the worst.

I am the worst influence. If you can't handle your vices, then I am the Devil.