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Morality quotes

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“Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm...” Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

“Morality can go to its father the devil.” George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.” Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

“Be not too hasty . . . to trust or to admire the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men.” Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

“A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.” Albert Einstein, The world as I see it

“Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by laxity of morals amongst all.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Morality has nothing in common with politics.” Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One

“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.” Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

“We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.” Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

“What is morality? . . . Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.” Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon...” Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

“We have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry and generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice.” John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women

“Freedom will destroy itself if it is not exercised within some sort of moral framework, some body of shared beliefs, some spiritual heritage transmitted through the Church, the family and the school.” Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power

“Scepticism means not intellectual Doubt alone, but moral Doubt; all sorts of infidelity, insincerity, spiritual paralysis.” Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History

“But, above all, it will confer an inestimable benefit on morality and religion, by showing that all the objections urged against them may be silenced for ever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by proving the ignorance of the objector.” Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

“Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor...” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

“The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in a nation's life.” Albert Einstein, The world as I see it

“The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.” George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better.” Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Moral education, which ought never, in any circumstances, to be rational.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.” Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“From this it follows that the censorship may be useful for the preservation of morality, but can never be so for its restoration.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.” Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason

“Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.” Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

“The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“people who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.” Stephen King, The Stand

“Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth, and embaseth it.” Francis Bacon, The Essays of Francis Bacon

“I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Hence also morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness.” Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason

“To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.” Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

“A country that demands moral perfection of itself as a test of its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.” Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy

“Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.” Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History

“A drug is neither moral nor immoral — it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary license to act like an asshole.” Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

“Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is in getting them clean again, and therein lies the whole morality of our epoch.” Honoré de Balzac, Father Goriot

“It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

“A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.” George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“the moral world . . . has, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.” Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“And for morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.” William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

“If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“I always want to know the things one shouldn't do . . . So as to choose” Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.” L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

“She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct.” Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Related topics

society happiness hypocrisy friendship religion education justice ignorance evil marriage good perfection behavior choice love truth freedom belief fear politics

Related authors

Ayn Rand (2)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1)
C. S. Lewis (1)
Oscar Wilde (5)
Immanuel Kant (3)
George Bernard Shaw (2)
Alexis de Tocqueville (2)
Herman Melville (2)
Albert Einstein (2)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2)
Thomas Carlyle (2)
Thomas Jefferson (1)
Terry Pratchett (1)
Aldous Huxley (1)
Samuel Johnson (1)
Bertrand Russell (1)
Mark Twain (1)
Bob Dylan (1)
Frank Zappa (1)
Charlotte Brontë (1)

Related sources

The Picture of Dorian Gray (4)
The world as I see it (2)
Democracy in America (2)
Man and Superman (2)
Moby-Dick (2)
The Social Contract (2)
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (2)
Atlas Shrugged (2)
Critique of Practical Reason (2)
An Ideal Husband (1)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1)
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1)
Mere Christianity (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
Brave New World (1)
Chronicles, Volume One (1)
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1)
The Real Frank Zappa Book (1)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1)
The Subjection of Women (1)