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Quotes about morality

501 quotes from 241 people

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People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing⁠—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.
Leo Tolstoy1828–1910Path of Life (1909), p. 210
Not only does the action of Governments not deter men from crimes; on the contrary, it increases crime by always disturbing and lowering the moral standard of society.
Leo Tolstoy1828–1910The Meaning of the Russian Revolution (1906), a work about the 1905 Russian Revolution.
- Government
If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.
Leo Tolstoy1828–1910Anna Karenina (1878), Part Eight, Chapter 12In context
- Good & Evil
- Virtue
The good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts, even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence.
Anthony Trollope1815–1882He Knew He Was Right (1869), Ch. 60
- Good & Evil
A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.
Leon Trotsky1879–1940Their Morals and Ours (1938)
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
I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying ‘flee at once⁠—all is discovered.’ They all left town immediately.
Mark Twain1835–1910
I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell⁠—you see, I have friends in both places.
Mark Twain1835–1910
Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain1835–1910To the Young People’s Society, Greenpoint Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn (16 February 1901)
Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Mark Twain1835–1910Following the Equator (1897), Ch. 66, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.
It is noble to be good; it is still nobler to teach others to be good⁠—and less trouble.
Mark Twain1835–1910
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
Mark Twain1835–1910Following the Equator (1897), Ch. 38, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.
- Money
What’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?
Mark Twain1835–1910Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Chapter XVIIn context
I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell”
Mark Twain1835–1910Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Chapter XXXIIn context
- Decisions
Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.
Mark Twain1835–1910Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Chapter XXXIIIIn context
- Good & Evil