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Quotes about morality

501 quotes from 241 people

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A man’s very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900
Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three, Chapter XI.
- Money
Would you live with ease? Do what you ought, not what you please.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Poor Richard’s Almanack
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900A Woman of No Importance (1893), Act III
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900
Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.
George S. Patton1885–1945
He was as great as a man can be without morality.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Said of Napoleon (1842), “Discours de réception a L’Académie Française prononcé le 21 Avril 1842” Oeuvres complètes, vol. IX, p. 17
The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900
If only for the sake of elegance, I try to remain morally pure.
Marcel Proust1871–1922
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Albert Einstein, as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949) edited by Paul A. Schilpp
I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Address to the Chicago Decalogue Society (20 February 1954)
- Talking
The time is always right to do what’s right.
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968“The Future of Integration”, address in Finney Chapel at Oberlin College (22 October 1964), as quoted in “When MLK came to Oberlin” by Cindy Leise, The Chronicle-Telegram (21 January 2008)
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950The Devil’s Disciple, Act II (1901)
- Good & Evil
The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Man and Superman (1903), p. 121
- Marriage
If a man knows what it is right to do, he does not require a formal reason. And a person that has been thus trained, either possesses these first principles already, or can easily acquire them.
Aristotle384–322 BCThe Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I) (Bk I, Ch II)