Morality Quotes

Law never made men a whit more just.

A perfect Muslim is he from whose tongue and hands mankind is safe.

What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honor.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.

Do your duty today and repent tomorrow.

Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously

You shall not steal! You shall not kill! Such words were once called holy; before them people bowrd their knees and heads, and removed their shoes. But I ask you: where have there ever been better thieves and killers in the world than such holy words have been? Is there not in all of life itself - robbing and killing? And when such words were called holy, was not truth itself thereby - killed?

Ain't no reason for me to kill nobody in the ring, unless they deserve it.

New inventions can and will be made; however, nothing new can be thought of that concerns moral man. Everything has already been thought and said which at best we can express in different forms and give new expressions to.

It’s wrong to hate. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong! It’s wrong in America, it’s wrong in Germany, it’s wrong in Russia, it’s wrong in China! It was wrong in two thousand B.C., and it’s wrong in nineteen fifty-four A.D.! It always has been wrong, and it always will be wrong!

Prudence reproaches; conscience accuses.

Wicked men obey for fear, but the good for love.

It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.

The great theatre for virtue is conscience.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.

I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

You have not been mistaken in supposing my views and feeling to be in favor of the abolition of war. Of my dispos[i]tion to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself, the world has had proofs, and more, perhaps, than it has approved. I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the dispos[i]tion to war; but of its abolition I despair.

The existence of virtue depends entirely upon its use.

It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.

State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognizes infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it.

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.

The one who is good, is free even being a slave; the one who is bad remains a slave even being a king.

When cruelty is inflicted on innocent people, it discredits whatever cause.

Duty is one and invariable; it requires no impossibilities, nor can it ever be disregarded with impunity.

There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties.

One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it.

If the people are governed by laws and punishment is used to maintain order, they will try to avoid the punishment but have no sense of shame. If they are governed by virtue and rules of propriety are used to maintain order, they will have a sense of shame and will become good as well.

A cowardly act! What do I care about that? You may be sure that I should never fear to commit one if it were to my advantage.

One ought to be just before one is generous

The only shame is to have none.

Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.

Pleasure causes us to do base actions and pain causes us to abstain from doing noble actions.

Athenian men, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right.

It is in this sense that Franklin says, "war is robbery, commerce is generally cheating.

The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics.

Tolerance obviously does not disturb the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil.

I have only one moral precept; never smoke more than five cigars at a time.

My only policy is to profess evil and do good.

When goodness is lost, it is replaced by morality.

Sometimes they threaten you with something - something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to So-and-so. And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You WANT it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself.

Eomer said, 'How is a man to judge what to do in such times?' As he has ever judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and evil have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among Elves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.

In his dealings with the world, the gentleman is not invariably for or against anything. He is on the side of what is moral.

I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances.

The sister's faceFell all in wrinkles of responsibility.She wanted to do right. She'd have to think.

You say a good cause justifies any war; but I say a good war justifies any cause.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

I think a curse should rest on me - because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment - and yet - I can't help it - I enjoy every second of it.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.

In the end, you should always do the right thing, even if it's hard. I know that might not help you and that the right thing isn't always so easy to figure out.

Humanity is the equity of the heart.

The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong is what is against it.

But who in war will not have his laugh amid the skulls?