Quotes
Quotes about Morals
Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
We must be free or die who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God.
Beauty vanishes like a vapor,
Preach the men of musty morals.
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure." - H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: A certain group of scholars, mostly German or influenced by German protestant theology, has rushed to abandon positions before they were attacked, and to demythologize the Gospel message when there was no clear evidence that intelligent minds outside the Church were any more frightened by her mystery than by her morals.
Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: The philosopher [Immanuel] Kant was right long ago to notice that moral activity implies a religious dimension. The atheist [Friedrich] Nietzsche also saw the point and argued forcefully that the person who gives up belief in God must be consistent and give up Christian morals as well, because the former is the foundation of the latter. He had nothing but contempt for fellow humanists who refused to see that Christian morality cannot survive the loss of its theological moorings, except as habit or as lifeless tradition. As Ayn Rand also sees so clearly, love of the neighbor cannot be rationally justified within the framework of secular humanism. Love for one's neighbor is an ethical implication of the Christian position. This suggests to me that the world's deepest problem is not economic or technological, but spiritual and moral. What is missing is the vision of reality that can sustain the neighbor-oriented life style that is so urgently needed in our world today.
Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672 Continuing a short series of testimonies on the Scriptures: It is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because (as they wrongly think) in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider not so much what God has said as the reason and purpose which He had in mind in saying it--this system cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost: and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.
General wisdom is not a threat to the gospel, because everything good traces to God. God is merciful and kind; he bestows truth, as well as rain and sunshine, upon the just and the unjust. Christ is the "true light that enlightens every man". This bestowal should inspire feelings of joy, not resentment, in the heart of a Christian. Aristotle said many wise things about logic, Confucius many wise things about morals. When a Christian attacks general wisdom in the name of the gospel, the natural man will attack the gospel in the name of general wisdom.
People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Nothing in Nature's sober found, But an eternal Health goes round. Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high-- Fill all the Glasses there; for why Should every Creature Drink but I? Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; morals, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship. -Mark Twain.
Whoever wants to be a leader should educate himself before educating others. Before preaching to others he should first practice himself. Whoever educates himself and improves his own morals is superior to the man who tries to teach and train others.
Experience is no more transferable in morals than in art.
A fop? In this brave, licentious age To bring his musty morals on the stage? Rhime us to reason? and our lives redress In metre, as Druids did the savages.
Priestly was the first (unless it was Becarria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth--that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.
To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination.
Morals and manners will rise or decline with our attention to grammar.
Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.
We have lost morals, justice, honor, piety and faith, and that sense of shame which, once lost, can never be restored. [Lat., Periere mores, jus, decus, pietas, fides, Et qui redire nescit, cum perit, pudor.]
Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
What we call "morals" is simply blind obedience to words of command.
