Quotes about Morality

Goodness is not the absence of badness. You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right.

In his brilliant book The Road to Character, David Brooks makes a distinction between résumé virtues and eulogy virtues. Résumé virtues are the skills you need to make a living, and those are often the most celebrated virtues in our culture. But when it comes to making a life, eulogy virtues win the day. These are the virtues that get talked about at your funeral.

Judge not, by the extent of one's wealth, but by the means used to obtain it.

The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal.

Be good and you will be lonely.

You can't pray a lie.

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.

Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden.

I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't.... The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right.