The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.
—George Goodman (b.1930) American Economist, Author
Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
A moral lesson is better expressed in short sayings than in long discourse.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann (1728–1795) Swiss Philosophical Writer, Naturalist, Physician
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
While moral rules may be propounded by authority the fact that these were so propounded would not validate them.
—A. J. Ayer (1910–89) English Philosopher
He without benefit of scruples
His fun and money soon quadruples.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
We moralize among ruins.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State
Conscience, the sense of right, the power of perceiving moral distinctions, the power of discerning between justice and injustice, excellence and baseness, is the highest faculty given us by God, the whole foundation of our responsibility, and our sole capacity for religion. …God, in giving us conscience, has implanted a principle within us which forbids us to prostrate ourselves before mere power, or to offer praise where we do not discover worth.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
The pure, the bright,
The beautiful that stirred our hearts in youth,
The impulses to wordless prayer,
The streams of love and truth,
The longing after something lost,
The spirit’s yearning cry,
The striving after better hopes;
These things can never die.
The timid hand stretched forth to aid a brother in his need,
A kindly word in grief’s dark hour that proves a friend indeed;
The plea for mercy softly breathed,
When justice threatens high,
The sorrow of a contrite heart;
These things shall never die, shall never die.
Let nothing pass,
For every hand must find some work to do,
Lose not a chance to waken love.
Be firm and just and true,
So shall a light that cannot fade beam on thee from on high,
And angel voices say to thee;
These things can never die.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
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 (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monumentos of man’s pride.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
I’m as pure as the driven slush.
—Tallulah Bankhead (1902–68) American Actress
The great rule of moral conduct is, next to God, to respect time.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
It is not best when we use our morals on weekdays; it gets them out of repair for Sundays.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
Might was the measure of right.
—F. L. Lucas (1894–1967) English Literary Critic, Poet, Novelist, Playwright
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.
—Isaac Asimov (1920–92) Russian-born American Writer, Scientist
A set of rules laid out by professionals to show the way they would like to act if it was profitable.
—Frank Lane (1896–1981) American Sportsperson, Businessperson
Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it’s set a rolling it must increase.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Morality is suspecting other people of not being legally married.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Without civic morality communities perish; without personal morality their survival has no value.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones. There is so much goodness and ingenuity in a raindrop that an apothecary wouldn’t let it go for less than half-a-crown…
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French Essayist, Intellectual
The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the good is. The problem of sanctions is secondary.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator, Writer
There can be no high civility without a deep morality.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
There’s always the hyena of morality at the garden gate, and the real wolf at the end of the street.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
The fatal trait of the times is the divorce between religion and morality.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The only immorality is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.
—Jean Anouilh (1910–87) French Dramatist
Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99% of them are wrong.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
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 (1732–99) American Head of State, Military Leader
What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Morality represents for everybody a thoroughly definite and ascertained idea: the idea of human conduct regulated in a certain manner.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Morality is largely a matter of geography.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Morality is the custom of one’s country and the current feeling of one’s peers.
—Samuel Butler