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Quotes about morality

501 quotes from 241 people

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Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.
Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system.
Jawaharlal Nehru1889–1964The Unity of India: Collected Writings, 1937-1940 (1942), p. 280
- Good & Evil
Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative.
Jean Cocteau1889–1963On Invisibility
- Poetry
Evil and good are God’s right hand and left.
Philip James Bailey1816–1902Festus (1839), Proem
- God
- Good & Evil
In argument about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.
Roger Scruton1944–2020Modern Philosophy (1995), “Some More -isms”, p. 32
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
Viktor Frankl1905–1997Postscript 1984: The Case for a Tragic Optimism, based on a lecture at the Third World Congress of Logotherapy, Regensburg University (19 June 1983)
- Good & Evil
- War & Peace
Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Harper Lee1926–2016To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Pt. 1, Ch. 10 (Atticus Finch)
- Animals
Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions.
George W. Bushborn 1946Remarks at the interfaith memorial service honoring five fallen officers in Dallas — full transcript at wfaa.com (12 July 2016)
We don’t want apartheid liberalized. We want it dismantled. You can’t improve something that is intrinsically evil.
Desmond Tutu1931–2021Speech (1985) as quoted in Equality, Volume 1, Issue 1 (1989)
- Good & Evil
- Race
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
The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.
L. Frank Baum1856–1919The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)In context
The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.
Rabindranath Tagore1861–1941Sādhanā: The Realisation of Life (1916)
- Love
To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.
John Stuart Mill1806–1873Utilitarianism (1861), Ch. 2
To be engaged in opposing wrong affords, under the conditions of our mental constitution, but a slender guarantee for being right.
William Ewart Gladstone1809–1898Homeric Synchronism: An Enquiry Into the Time and Place of Homer (1876), Introduction
The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even — if you will — eccentricity.
Joseph Brodsky1940–1996“A Commencement Address” (1984), delivered at Williams College; As quoted in: Robert Inchausti (2014) Thinking through Thomas Merton. p. 110
- Good & Evil
- Thinking
I intend to do what little one man can do to awaken the public conscience, and in the meantime I am not frightened by your menaces.
Upton Sinclair1878–1968Letter to the Louis D. Oaks, Los Angeles Chief of Police (17 May 1923)
- Courage