"Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing -- by dint of ignorance and innocence -- that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way."

Ethics, Guilt, Innocence, Reflection, Awareness

11

Create Your Own Wallpaper

Standard

Customized

"Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing -- by dint of ignorance and innocence -- that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way."

Exlpore more Ethics quotes

"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?"

Carl Sagan, American Scientist

Ethics, Judgment, Fairness, Time, Perspective

"And no one rose to ask the question: Good?-by what standard?John Galt."

Ayn Rand, Russian Writer

Ethics, Morality, Judgment, Evil, Values

"Ethics are the things that say, 'Don't stick your finger in the socket.' The world says, 'It's okay because we've shut off the electricity.' And at the point that we've chosen to listen to the world and ignore our ethics, we say, 'I'm having a really hard time getting back up."

Craig D. Lounsbrough, American Author

Ethics, Morality, Truth, Life

"He that resolves to deal with none but honest men must leave off dealing."

Thomas Fuller, English Clergyman

Ethics, Honesty, Integrity, Trust, Decision

"When we constantly ask for miracles, we're unraveling the fabric of the world. A world of continuous miracles would not be a world, it would be a cartoon."

Doug Coupland, Canadian Author

Ethics, Miracles, World

"Do not treat others as you would not like to be treated' frees one from hypocrisy. 'Treat others as you would like to be treated' enslaves one with insincerity."

Mokokoma Mokhonoana, South African Philosopher

Ethics, Morality, Truth, Behavior, Hypocrisy

"Might could would-they are contemptible auxiliaries."

George Eliot, British Author

Ethics, Power, Contempt, Morality, Strength

"Let thy true religion be to act right."

Lailah Gifty Akita, Ghanaian Author

Ethics, Religion, Action, Morality, Right

"It's easy to talk big, but the important thing is whether or not you clean up the shit."

Haruki Murakami, Japanese Writer

Ethics, Responsibility, Action, Truth, Integrity

"Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful."

Stephen King, American Author

Ethics, Goodness, Action, Truth, Wisdom

Explore more quotes by Gregory Maguire

"Galinda didn't often stop to consider whether she believed in what she said or not, the whole point of conversations was flow."

Communication

"There were people everywhere but no one was mine, and I was no one's."

Emotion

"The future reshapes the memory of the past in the way it recalibrates significance: some episodes are advanced, others lose purchase."

Time

"The world was floods above and fire below."

Nature

"Perhaps family itself, like beauty, is temporary, and no discredit need attach to impermanence."

Relationship

"He had thought love as a policy made a lot of sense for those who could manage it, and anyone who could manage it belonged in religious life. The rest of us have to struggle with more ordinary love, the common or garden variety: love as a crippling condition. Love as a syndrome."

Love

"Of course. You get everything from books."

Reading

"The circularity of influence was like a trail of dominoes falling in four dimensions. Each time one slapped another and fell to the ground, from a different vantage point it appeared knocked upright, ready to be slapped and fall again. Everything was not merely relative, it was--how to put it? --relevant. Representational. Revealing. Referential and reverential both."

Perspective

"Come what may and hell to pay."

Motivation

"Animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do."

Behavior