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Quotes about morality

501 quotes from 241 people

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Most of all, anarchism is just a matter of having the courage to take the simple principles of common decency that we all live by, and to follow them through to their logical conclusions.
David Graeber1961–2020Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You! (2000)
- Politics
The world is not black and white. More like black and grey.
Graham Greene1904–1991The Observer (London, January 2, 1983)
- Good & Evil
If a law commands me to sin I will break it; if it calls me to suffer, I will let it take its course unresistingly.
Angelina Grimké1805–1879“Appeal to the Christian Women of the South” (1836)
- Laws
Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons!
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Jude the Obscure (1895), Pt. VI, ch. IIIIn context
Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture.
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Chapter IIn context
- Character
Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we would!
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Jude the Obscure (1895), Part Fifth: At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Good & Evil
- Nature
I am in a chaos of principles⁠—groping in the dark⁠—acting by instinct and not after example. Eight or nine years ago when I came here first, I had a neat stock of fixed opinions, but they dropped away one by one; and the further I get the less sure I am.
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Jude the Obscure (1895), Part Sixth: At Christminster Again, Chapter IIn context
- Experience
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other ‘sins’ are invented nonsense.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Time Enough for Love (1973).
Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Starship Troopers (1959)
Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)
Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 7
So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 1
All things truly wicked start from an innocence.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961A Moveable Feast (1964), Ch. 20
- Good & Evil
A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience.
O. Henry1862–1910Strictly Business (1910)
- Writing
Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.
Patrick Henry1736–1799