Morality Quotations

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MORALITY: A traditional code of decency that went out the window about the same time as belief in eternal damnation.
- Rick Bayan, in The Cynic's Dictionary

Morality is character and conduct such as is required by the circle or community in which the man's life happens to be placed. It shows how much good men require of us.
- Henry Ward Beecher, in Life of Thoughts (1858)

Morality's not practical. Morality's a gesture. A complicated gesture learnt from books.
- Robert Bolt, in A Man For All Seasons (1960)

All systems of morality are fine. The gospel alone has exhibited a complete assemblage of the principles of morality, divested of all absurdity. It is not composed, like your creed, of a few common-place sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to see that which is really sublime? Repeat the Lord's Prayer.
- Napoleon Bonaparte, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 419.

Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.
- Lewis Carroll, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.
- Charles Caleb Colton, in Lacon (1820)

The system of morality which Socrates made it the business of his life to teach was raised upon the firm basis of religion. The first principles of virtuous conduct which are common to all mankind are, according to this excellent moralist, laws of God; and the conclusive argument by which he supports this opinion is, that no man departs from these principles with impunity.
- William Enfield, in The History of Philosophy Vol. I, (1819), p. 185

Socrates taught that true felicity is not to be derived from external possessions, but from wisdom, which consists in the knowledge and practice of virtue; that the cultivation of virtuous manners is necessarily attended with pleasure as well as profit; that the honest man alone is happy; and that it is absurd to attempt to separate things which are in nature so closely united as virtue and interest.
- William Enfield, in The History of Philosophy Vol. I, (1819), p. 185

It is the dutiful disposition of each person to spread morality outside of himself to the best of his ability and knowledge, i.e., to see to it that everyone has the same disposition he has ... It follows from this that the overall end of the moral community as a whole is to produce unanimity concerning matters of morality.
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in The System of Ethics : According to the Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre (2005), p.329

Morality rests upon a sense of obligation; and obligation has no meaning except as implying a Divine command, without which it would cease to be.
- James Anthony Froude, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 419.

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last.
- James Anthony Froude, in the lecture "The Science of History" (5 February 1864); published in Representative Essays (1885) by George Haven Putnam, p. 274; John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton quoted the first sentence of this an address of 1895, and this has often been misattributed to him.

Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.
- Karl Kraus, "The Riehl Case" in Die Fackel; also in Karl Kraus (1971) by Harry Zohn, p. 47,

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning, — an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 419.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99% of them are wrong.
- H. L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy' (1949)', Ch. 30, p. 617

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
- Bertrand Russell, in Why I Am Not a Christian; this has often been misquoted as "The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."

My thesis is that morality exists outside the human mind in the sense of being not just a trait of individual humans, but a human trait; that is, a human universal.
- Michael Shermer, in The Science of Good and Evil

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
- Isaac Asimov

In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say, Is there any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered by asking ourselves another: Is there any harm in letting it alone?
- Charles Caleb Colton

I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern without any superhuman authority behind it.
- Albert Einstein

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.
- William Faulkner

It is safe to say that no other superstition is so detrimental to growth, so enervating and paralyzing to the minds and hearts of the people, as the superstition of Morality.
- Emma Goldman

To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.
- John Locke

So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
- Ernest Hemingway

The quality of moral behaviour varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.
- Aldous Huxley

Morality without religion, is only a kind of dead reckoning,—an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have to run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ten men have failed from defect in morals where one has failed from defect in intellect.
- Horace Mann

To denounce moralizing out of hand is to pronounce a moral judgment.
- H.L. Mencken

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one that we preach, but do not practice, and another that we practice, but seldom preach.
- Bertrand Russell

Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good ;consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.
- Albert Schweitzer

French morality is not of that strait-laced description which is shocked at trifles.
- Mark Twain

All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.
- Voltaire

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
- George Washington

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
- Oscar Wilde, Variant: Morality is simply the attitude we adopt to people we personally dislike.

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See also: Ethics

Quoternity