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Morality Quotes
"You take evil for good. It's a passing crisis. It's the result of your illness, perhaps.- You do despise me! It's simply that I don't want to do good, I want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with illness.- Why do evil?- So that everything will be destroyed. Oh, how nice it would be if everything were destroyed! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think of doing a lot of harm. I would do it for a long while secretly and then suddenly everyone would find out. Everyone will stand around and point their fingers at me and I will look at them all. That would be awfully nice."
12
"My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart."
12
"The Lord teaches forgiveness, but some things are unforgivable."
12
"A little neglect may breed great mischief. ... For want of a nail the shoe was lost for want of a shoe the horse was lost for want of a horse the battle was lost for want of the battle the war was lost."
12
"All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is nature glorious with form, color, and motion, that every globe in the remotest heaven; every chemical change from the rudest crystal up to the laws of life; every change of vegetation from the first principle of growth in the eye of a leaf, to the tropical forest and antediluvian coal-mine; every animal function from the sponge up to Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong, and echo the Ten Commandments."
12
"These principles laid down as in variable rules: that one must pay a card sharper, but need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat any one, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up."
12
"He said after a little while, 'I see why you say that only men do evil, I think. Even sharks are innocent, they kill because they must.' 'That is why nothing can resist us. Only one thing in the worl can resist an evil-hearted man. And that is another man. In our shame is our glory. Only our spirit, which is capable of evil, is capable of overcoming it."
12
"I am not a 'wise man,' nor . . . shall I ever be. And so require not from me that I should be equal to the best, but that I should be better than the wicked. It is enough for me if every day I reduce the number of my vices, and blame my mistakes."
12
"We are not often against the evils, only because our enemies are against them."
12
"Striving to be good is the ultimate struggle of every man. Being bad is easy, but being good requires sincere commitment, discipline and strength. We have to work hard every day just to remain good."
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"You make me a sinner if you stop me giving you hospitality."
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"If your doctrine changed for the better yet your character changed for the worse, you changed for the worse."
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"People forget to understand your goodness, teach them something new."
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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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"If we could only learn to look on evil as evil, whether it's clothed in filth or monotony or magnificence."
12
"When a moral man speaks, listen. But when immoral men speak, toss away their words like bad fruit. Truth will never shine from a heart filled with corruption and lies."
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"Evil travels the world in anonymity, its presence revealed only by the periodic consequences of its desires..."
12
"Hypocrisy has its place in the ages of strong belief: in which even when one is compelled to exhibit a different belief one does not abandon the belief on already has."
12
"There is nothing morally wrong with buying stolen goods, unless you know that they were stolen."
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"Oh, those grumblers! They all take principles as motives and dare not follow their desires."
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"Every criminal has a good mind conquered by the devil."
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"Morality is not respectability."
12
"A real man does not beg forgiveness but earn it."
11
"If I had to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last page I should write: "I recognize only one duty, and that is to love."
11
"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 opportunity to do what is right is available at all times."
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"To the grim poor there need be no pourquoi tale about where evil arises; it just arises; it always is. One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her--is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil...?"
11
"Swann, with that almost arrogant charity of a man of the world who, amid the dissolution of all his own moral prejudices, finds in another's shame merely a reason for treating him with a friendly benevolence..."
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"Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness."
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"Pride is the problem. Everyone wants to be right so badly they overlook the "rights" of others."
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"Surely no rebel can expect the King to pardon his treason while he remains in open revolt. No one can be so foolish as to imagine that the Judge of all the earth will put away our sins if we refuse to put them away ourselves."
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"The prosperity of right is that it is always beautiful and pure."
11
"It pains me even now, even a million years later, to write about such human misbehaviour.A million years later, I feel like apologizing for the human race. That's all I can say."
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