Moral Quotes

In short, I'm not sure that the abortion problem can be solved by legislation. I think it can only be solved through moral persuasion.

So after the Lewinsky scandal, everything changed, and we moved from using the Bible to address the moral issues of our time, which were social, to moral issues of our time that were very personal. I have continued that relationship up until the present.

Be these people either Conservatives or Socialists, Yellows or Reds, the most important thing is - and that is the point I want to stress - that all of them are right in the plain and moral sense of the word.

Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

Christianity makes of life a moral drama in which we play a starring role and in which the most ordinary events take on a grand significance.

I do not think it possible for anyone to get by in life without prejudice. However, the attempt to do so leads many people to suppose that, in order to decide any moral question, they have to find an indubitable first principle from which they can deduce an answer.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.

Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.

Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes practice; and those who are brilliant at being human (what Christians call the saints) are the virtuosi of the moral sphere - the Pavarottis and Maradonas of virtue.

Family and moral values are so central to everything that I am.

It is the inspiration of the Olympic Games that drives people not only to compete but to improve, and to bring lasting spiritual and moral benefits to the athlete and inspiration to those lucky enough to witness the athletic dedication.

The accumulation of numbers always augments in some measure moral corruptions, and the consequences to health of the various vices incident thereto, are well known.

I have reached the conclusion that those who have physical courage also have moral courage. Physical courage is a great test.

When we talk about self-confrontations, we are speaking about moral issues rather than social issues.

For me, an area of moral clarity is: you're in front of someone who's suffering and you have the tools at your disposal to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it, and you act.

I was extremely greedy and lost my moral compass.

A woman can look both moral and exciting... if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle.

If we are now holding late-night talk-show hosts to the same moral accountability as we hold politicians or clergymen, I'm out. I'm gone.

Ask me not, 'Are you rightwing,' but ask me 'Are you a committed believer in individual freedom, the values of the enlightenment?' Then, yeah, if being rightwing means believing Adam Smith was right, both in the 'Wealth of Nations' and the 'Theory of Moral Sentiments,' then I'm rightwing.

I've always been - as a teacher, as graduate student, as a student, and I think, really, as a child - I've been interested in poems, but not so much for what the take home pay is, what you might sum up from them in moral or intellectual terms or whatever, but what's in the certain lines and how lines relates to other lines.

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

To imply that religious believers have no right to engage moral questions in the public square or at the ballot is simply to establish a Reichian secularism as our state faith.

Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.

The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers.

George Orwell is a pinnacle writer, for his combination of moral insight and literary writing.

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.

From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out.

If a policy is wrongheaded, feckless and corrupt, I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it's fixed.

So long as the opposing forces are at the outset approximately equal in numbers and moral and there are no flanks to turn, a long struggle for supremacy is inevitable.

I never fixed a story. I didn't make judgments, I let the listener make judgments. When I got to the end of the story, if it had a moral, I let the listener find it.

Obviously, you don't have to be religious to be moral, and beastly people are sometimes religious.

My parents did great and provided well, and gave all their kids personal, moral, ethical values, not a belief that we were entitled to something.

Film is the manipulative medium par excellence. When you think back on the history of film and the 20th century, you see the propaganda that's been made. So there are moral demands on the director to treat the spectators as seriously as he or she takes himself and not to see them merely as victims that can be manipulated to whatever ends they have.

It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

The quality of moral behavior varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.

Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture and very much to our credit.

Healing is a moral thing to do.

We've come a long way in our thinking, but also in our moral decay. I can't imagine Dr. King watching the 'Real Housewives' or 'Jersey Shore.'

I am conservative with a small 'c.' It's possible to be conservative in fiscal policy, and tolerant on moral issues or questions of freedom of expression.

Human and moral factors must always be considered. They must never be missing from policies and from public discussion.

Nuclear weapons are intrinsically neither moral nor immoral, though they are more prone to immoral use than most weapons.

Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

The security of Israel is a moral imperative for all free peoples.

We are all murderers and prostitutes - no matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be.

Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.

The theoretically unrestricted right to develop power, to wage war against other states, is antisocial and is doubly dangerous, because the state as a mass entity represents a low moral and intellectual level.

Technologists provide tools that can improve people's lives. But I want to be clear that I don't think technology by itself improves people's lives, since often I'm criticized for being too pro-technology. Unless there's commensurate ethical and moral improvements to go along with it, it's for naught.

Progressive rhetoric has the effect of concealing social crisis and moral breakdown by presenting them as the birth pangs of a new order.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.

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.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

A bad author can take the most moral issue and make you want to just never, ever think about that moral issue.

To be in good moral condition requires at least as much training as to be in good physical condition.

We not only have a legal obligation to honor our commitments, we have a moral obligation to provide the coverage we promised to provide to these people.

If we can find God only as he is revealed in nature we have no moral God.

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

No Government has the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage.

There are some heterosexuals that have heterosexual behavior that is appalling sexually, that is deviant and bad and not really moral and Christ-like and biblical. But those people are never questioned as to whether or not they're allowed to be a parent.

As a nuclear power - as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon - the United States has a moral responsibility to act.

With regard to the moral and religious condition of the slaves, I cannot, either from what I observe, or from what is told me, consider it in any way gratifying.

We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.

The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.

Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.

We become moral when we are unhappy.

After the turbulence of death, moral principles and even religious proofs are called into question.

To be frank, I suspect that today there is little respect for Christianity as source of moral teaching about goodness.

What can the Church do? If she stands by her moral teaching, then she will be seen as standing in judgement over a vast percentage of Europeans.

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.