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Quotes about morality

501 quotes from 241 people

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All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.
W. H. Auden1907–1973A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970), “Hell”
- Religion
The root of a nation’s misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government.
Aung San Suu Kyiborn 1945In Quest of Democracy (1991)
- Government
A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.
Marcus Aurelius121–180Meditations, Book IX, 5
Evil cannot perish without the destruction of much that lives by the evil, and it is no less destruction even if we personally are saved the pain of a sensational act of violence.
Sri Aurobindo1872–1950“Kurukshetra” in Essays on the Gita (1995), p. 39
- Good & Evil
“I am afraid,” replied Elinor, “that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.”
Jane Austen1775–1817Sense and Sensibility (1811), Chapter XIIIIn context
What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.
Jane Austen1775–1817Emma (1815), Volume II, Chapter VIn context
We do not look in great cities for our best morality.
Jane Austen1775–1817Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter IXIn context
We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
Francis Bacon1561–1626The Advancement of Learning (1605), Book II, xxi, 9
Evil and good are God’s right hand and left.
Philip James Bailey1816–1902Festus (1839), Proem
- God
- Good & Evil
Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
James Baldwin1924–1987“The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy”
The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.
Charles Baudelaire1821–1867“Le Joueur généreux” (1864), in Le Spleen de Paris
- Good & Evil
To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.
Charles Baudelaire1821–1867Le Spleen de Paris (1862), XXVIII: “La Fausse Monnaie”
- Good & Evil
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
There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one’s conscience.
Simone de Beauvoir1908–1986All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 181
If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man’s ethical formation, in man’s inner growth, then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world.
Pope Benedict XVI1927–2022Spe Salvi, encyclical, sec. 22 (30 November 2007)
- Technology