Quotes about Morality

It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.

civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices.

Religion is a good thing for good people and a bad thing for bad people.

It is fair, therefore, to assume that growing rationality is a guarantee of man's growing morality.

Teachers of morals who do not see the difference between the problem of charity within the limits of an accepted social system and the problem of justice between economic groups, holding uneven power within modern industrial society, have simply not faced the most obvious differences between the morals of groups and those of individuals.

Absolutism, in both religious and political realism, is a splendid incentive to heroic action, but a dangerous guide in immediate and concrete situations.

Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.

Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.

Of two duties we must choose the greater, though of two sins we must choose neither (556).

What else is the law made for, but to be the rule of life, and the rule of judgment? Read Psal. i. and xv.; Matt. v. vii. and xxv.,

Oh! what a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience(93)!

Hard studies, much knowledge, and excellent preaching are but a more glorious hypocritical sinning if the ends are not right.