Quotes about Morality

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: 'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.'

You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that... The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. That is all.

Gratitude is the mother of the virtues.

And I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.

No consciousness that we would recognize as consciousness. Not awareness, as far as we can make out, of a self with a history. What I mind is what tends to come next. They have no consciousness therefore. Therefore what? Therefore we are free to use them for our own ends Therefore we are free to kill them? Why? What is so special about the form of consciousness that we recognize that makes killing a bearer of it a crime while killing an animal goes unpunished?

Why has he taken this job?... For the sake of the dogs? But the dogs are dead; and what do dogs know of honour and dishonour anyway? For himself then. For his idea of the world, a world in which men do not use shovels to beat corpses into a more convenient shape for processing.

The filth of village; honestly acquired.

I tell myself I talk to Friday to educate him out of darkness and silence. But is that the truth? There are times when benevolence deserts me and I use the words only as the shortest way to subject him to my will. At such times I understand why Cruso preferred not to disturb his muteness. I understand, that is to say, why a man will choose to be a slaveowner. Do you think less of me for this confession?

God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.

I'm interested in two things. I'm interested in truth and I'm interested in fairness.

It's really amazing that in the age of unbelief, as a smart man called it, there isn't even more fraud. After all, with no God, there's no one to ever call you to account, and no accounting at all if you can get away with it.

For me to bully anybody, that sounds unbelievable.