Quotes About Values

She had found out that she had given herself to the exclusive and the dowdy when the future belonged to the showy and the promiscuous; that she was in the case of those who have cast in their lot with a fallen cause

a frivolous society can acquire significance through what its frivolity destroys.

You mean, I suppose, that society here is not as brilliant? You're right, I daresay; but we belong here, and people should respect our ways when they come among us. Ellen Olenska especially: she came back to get away from the kind of life people lead in brilliant societies.

After all, there was good in the old ways.

THE TOUCHSTONE

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us; nor can we know distinctly to what port we steer.

where there is no sound reason, there can be no real virtue.

Criminal means once tolerated are soon preferred.

all virtues are not equally becoming to all men and at all times.

When I grew up I would always be frank, loving and generous.

No one respected them for their labor in a country where the idea of honorable poverty had vanished.

I continue to live by many of the rules I learned running a business for nearly forty years, advice dispensed by my mother, Jewell Spencer Lewis Clarke: 1) Be a proud black man; 2) Take care of family; 3) Get a good education; and 4) Always try to do the right thing.

He hated happy families with their mutual encouragement, and their demonstrative affection, and the impression they gave of valuing each other more than other people.

No one cares about their reputation or their bank account when they find themselves in the shadow of death.

What is immoral to do is immoral to threaten.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

It's a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

Integrity has no need of rules.

There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

Ne pas devenir pauvre avec une âme de pauvre. La misère avilit. Le pauvre devient laid et prend l'autobus, se lave moins, sent la transpiration, compte ses sous, perd sa seigneurie et ne peut plus sincèrement mépriser. On ne méprise bien peu ce que l'on possède et domine. Goethe méprisait mieux que Rousseau.

Possessions, outward success, publicity, LUXURY -- to me these have always been contemptible. I assume that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind

Science can only determine what is, but not what shall be, and beyond its realm, value judgements remain indispensable. Religion, on the other hand, is concerned only with evaluating human thought and actions; it is not qualified to speak of real facts and the relationships between them.

A man's moral worth is not measured by what his religious beliefs are but rather by what emotional impulses he has received from Nature during his lifetime.