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Morality Quotes
"There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules."
26
"A man of words and not of deeds, Is like a garden full of weeds."
26
"On 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 which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness."
25
"An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty."
25
"To err is human to forgive divine."
25
"Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day."
25
"Actions are most important in life: act with love, kindness, understanding, and compassion toward others that they may bear witness to your belief(s)."
25
"The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness."
25
"A bad conscience is easier to cope with than a bad reputation."
25
"It is almost impossible to imagine that any one could be so insensible to the high morality of Mr. Mill's character as to suggest to him any course of conduct that was not entirely upright and consistent."
25
"I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair." In these words he epitomized the history of the human race."
25
"Always do what is right not what is convenient. This will reflect your love and kindness for humanity."
25
"The opportunity to do what is right is available at all times."
24
"Grace abounds in contemporary movies, books, novels, films and music. If God is not in the whirlwind, He may be in a Woody Allen film, or a Bruce Springsteen concert. Most people understand imagery and symbol better than doctrine and dogma. Images touch hearts and awaken imaginations. One theologian suggested that Springsteen's 'Tunnel of Love' album, in which he symbolically sings of sin, death, despair and redemption, is more important for Catholics than the Pope's last visit when he spoke of morality only in doctrinal propositions."
24
"Most people are good and occasionally do something they know is bad. Some people are bad and struggle every day to keep it under control. Others are corrupt to the core and don't give a damn, as long as they don't get caught. But evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it's good."
24
"Sirs, if you are listening and are not acting, it is like a man who is always tilling but never sowing. It is better not to listen to a truth than to listen without acting, for then it becomes a poison."
24
"It isn't enough to stand up and fight darkness. You've got to stand apart from it, too. You've got to be different from it."
24
"If you judge people you have no time to love them."
24
"In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don't baptize the children of single mothers because they weren't conceived in the sanctity of marriage. These are today's hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation."
24
"On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space."
24
"If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men."
24
"An action done from duty has its moral worth, not in the purpose to be attained by it, but in the maxim according with which it is decided upon; it depends therefore, not on the realization of the object of action, but solely on the principle of volition in accordance with which, irrespective of all objects of the faculty of desire, the action has been performed."
24
"The biggest thing in today's sorrow is the memory of yesterday's joy."
24
"Selfish- a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice."
23
"Sometimes it's difficult to tell what side of the moral compass we are all on. There are so many things to factor in."
23
"Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic."
23
"We do not look in our great cities for our best morality."
23
"But how nice it would be to know that some good Yankee woman - And there must be SOME good Yankee women. I don't care what people say, they can't all be bad! How nice it would be to know that they pulled weeds off our men's graves and brought flowers to them, even if they were enemies. If Charlie were dead in the North it would comfort me to know that someone - And I don't care what you ladies think of me, her voice broke again, 'I will withdraw from both clubs and I'll - I'll pull up every weed off every Yankee's grave I can find and I'll plant flowers, too - and - I just dare anyone to stop me!"
23
"They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery."
23
"There ain't nothing but one thing wrong with every one of us and that's selfishness."
23
"Anyway, there were thousands of Kantoreks, all of them convinced that they were acting for the best, in a way that was the most comfortable for themselves.But as far as we are concerned, that is the very root of their moral bankruptcy."
23
"Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do."
23
"Scratch the heresy and you will find the leper. Every battle against heresy wants only this: to keep the leper as he is."
23
"Damn! What did Ansermet, that most faithful friend, know about Stravinsky's poverty of heart? What did he, that most devoted friend, know about Stravinsky's capacity to love? And where did he get his utter certainty that the heart is ethically superior to the brain? Are not vile acts committed as often with the heart's help as without it? Can't fanatics, with their bloody hands, boast of a high degree of "affective activity"? Will we ever be done with this imbecile sentimental Inquisition, the heart's Reign of Terror?"
23
"And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too."
23
"If you go to your death rather than do everything you might to prevent what is happening, you are merely committing suicide and trying to make yourself feel better about it. That is the act of a coward. It is beneath contempt."
23
"Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning."
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