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
This is the difference between my morality and hedonism. The standard is not: that is good which gives me pleasure, just because it gives me pleasure (which is the standard of the dipsomaniac or the sex-chaser)
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
The quality of moral behavior varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crises, maintain their neutrality.
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian Poet, Philosopher
Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
When moral courage feels that it is in the right, there is no personal daring of which it is incapable.
—Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) British Poet, Essayist, Journalist
To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; and to have a deference for others governs our manners.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
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 (1869–1940) Lithuanian-American Anarchist, Feminist
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
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
Morality is a private and costly luxury.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.
—Samuel Butler
The fatal trait of the times is the divorce between religion and morality.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) German Philosopher, Linguist, Statesman
The essence of morality is the subjugation of nature in obedience to social needs.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Political Leader, Writer, Editor, Journalist
Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people.
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) English Occultist, Mystic, Magician
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
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) English Occultist, Mystic, Magician
Without civic morality communities perish; without personal morality their survival has no value.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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
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
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
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 (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
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
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
If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say “give them up,” for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Don’t let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
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
Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
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 great rule of moral conduct is, next to God, to respect time.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.
—Isaac Asimov (1920–92) Russian-born American Writer, Scientist
The only immorality is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.
—Jean Anouilh (1910–87) French Dramatist
There is no such thing as morality or immorality in thought. There is immoral emotion.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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
To give a man full knowledge of morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
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 (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Many people convince themselves if it is economically necessary, it’s morally right. That’s not always the case.
—Unknown
For the “superior morality,” of which we hear so much, we too would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindness to deny that this “superior morality” is properly rather an “inferior criminality,” produced not by greater love of Virtue, but by greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Moral: Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right; having the quality of general expediency.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist