Mohandas K. Gandhi

“ It is not enough that an act done by us is in itself good; it should have been done with the moral or otherwise depends upon the intention of the doer. Two men may have done exactly the same thing; but the act of one may be moral, and that of the other contrary. Take, for instance, a man who out of great pity feeds the poor and another who does the same, but with the motive of winning prestige or with some such selfish end. Though the action is the same, the act of the one is moral and that of the other non-moral. ”

“ Still the mere observance of custom and usage cannot properly be called morality.
A moral act must be our own act; it must spring from our own will. If we act mechanically, there is no moral content in our act. Such action would be moral, if we think it proper to act like a machine and do so. ”

“ While thinking of morality, all that we need to see is that the act is good and is done with a good intention. The result of an action is not within our control. God alone is the giver of fruit. Historians have called Emperor Alexander "great". ”

“ To preserve morality thus demands a brave man prepared to face even death. It is cowardice to be true to friends and to break faith with enemies. Those who do good out of fear and haltingly have no moral virtue. ”

“ When can it be said that a particular action is moral? In asking this question, the intention is not to contrast moral with immoral actions, but to consider many of our everyday actions against which nothing can be said from the conventional standpoint and which some regard as moral. Most of our action are probably non-moral; they do not necessarily involve morality. ”

“ But plain, simple living would be moral if, though wealthy, I think of all the want and misery in the world about me -and feel that I ought to live a plain, simple life and not one of ease and luxury. ”

“ Just as an action prompted by the motive of material gain here on earth is non-moral. That action is moral which is done only for the sake of doing good. A great Christian, St. Franscis Xavier, passionately prayed that his mind might always remain pure. ”

“ We should bear in mind the distinction between acting mechanically and acting intentionally. It may be a moral of a king to pardon a culprit. But the messenger bearing the order of pardon plays only a mechanical part in the king's moral act. ”

“ It would be moral if the employer wished well of them and treated them kindly realizing how we owed his prosperity to them. This means that for an act to be moral it has to be free from fear and compulsion. ”

“ This shows how difficult it is to judge the morality of a man's action because we cannot penetrate the depths of his mind. We have also the answer to the question raised at the outset in this chapter: what is a moral action? Incidentally, we also saw which kind of men could live up that morality. ”

“ For the most part we act according to the prevailing on conventions. Such conventional behaviour is often necessary. If no such rules are observed, anarchy would be the result, and society-social intercourse would come to an end. ”