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Morality Quotes
"A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most."
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"Salvation: to see each thing for what it is- its nature and its purpose.To do only what is right, say only what is true, without holding back.What else could it be but to live life fully- to pay out goodnesslike the rings of a chain, without the slightest gap."
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"IF I had only one sermon to preach, it would be a sermon against Pride. The more I see of existence, and especially of modern practical and experimental existence, the more I am convinced of the reality of the old religious thesis; that all evil began with some attempt at superiority; some moment when, as we might say, the very skies were cracked across like a mirror, because there was a sneer in Heaven."
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"As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, 'I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal."
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"The bite of conscience is indecent."
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"What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame."
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"Sometimes one man must fight for what he feels is right, even against the majority. Something that is wrong does not change to right just because the majority approves it, ignores it, or the government says it is right. It is still wrong."
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"If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn."
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"When someone refuses listening to reason disaster will surely follow."
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"When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme, to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination."
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"Even the most sadistic and destructive man is human, as human as the saint."
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"The modern evil, we have said, greatly turns on this: thatpeople do not see that the exception proves the rule. Thus it mayor may not be right to kill a murderer; but it can only conceivablybe right to kill a murderer because it is wrong to kill a man."
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"I mind how I said to you once that there is a price for being good the same as for being bad; a cost to pay. And it's the good men that cant deny the bill when it comes around. They cant deny it for the reason that there aint any way to make them pay it, like a honest man that gambles. The bad men can deny it; that's why dont anybody expect them to pay on sight or any other time. But the good cant. Maybe it takes longer to pay for being good than for being bad."
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"The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. One the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill."
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"It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much."
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"Every day we make our way through a moral forest, along pathways ever branching. Often we get lost.When the array of paths before us is so perplexing that we can't make a choice, or won't, we can hope that we will be given a sign to guide us. A reliance on sighs, however, can lead to the evasion of all moral obligations, and thus earn a terrible judgment."
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"I fear that in the individual lives of all but a few, the balance is in debit - we do so little that is positive good, even if we negatively avoid what is actively evil."
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"The evil that is in the world almost always comes from ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding."
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"I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal."
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"Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?"
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"As time moves on the line will blur. It will no longer seem to be the simplicity of good versus evil, but good versus fools who think they are good."
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"I committed a sin the day I refused you - I discovered metal inside me where my heart should be - forgive me, Love, for acting on principles..."
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"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
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"We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young."
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"And keep them thinking in terms of 'being good' as this is not an end so much as a means to something else -happiness, respect, self-esteem, etc And whatever their true end is, take it away, and so goes their goodness."
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"Whenever you feel like criticzing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven t had the advantages that you've had."
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"The targets of this story are not 'wayward sinners' but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. H wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them."
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"Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas."
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"I'm no goddam animal. I may be a stupid, fouled-up twentieth-century son of a bitch, but I'm no animal. Don't gimme that. I'm no animal."
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"You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself."
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