The orthodox tend to think that people who, like the postmodernists and me, believe neither in God nor in some suitable substitute, must feel that everything is permitted, that everybody can do what they like.

No, it is not my sense of the immorality of the Humbert Humbert-Lolita relationship that is strong; it is Humbert’s sense. He cares, I do not. I do not give a damn for public morals,...

But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained...

[W]e conceive the Devil as a necessary part of a respectable view of cosmology. Ours is a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of...

The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in ones own home.” Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The...

Blessed are ones who are all dressed-up in the outfit of the life’s simplicity in reality and the stressed-out are all those who are busy keeping the practicality in totality in life.

When a political opponent resorts to the racist card, it’s a sure sign of moral bankruptcy: there’s no decent argument left in the armoury.

Nature teaches us to devour each other and gives us the example of all the crimes and all the vices which the social state corrects or conceals. We should love virtue; but it is well...

A wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens.

Don’t swallow your moral code in tablet form.

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.

It was a warship, after all. It was built, designed to glory in destruction, when it was considered appropriate. It found, as it was rightly and properly supposed to, an awful beauty in both the...

If Christ be a fraud, he was among the most peculiar yet brilliant of frauds in saying that only he was the way, the truth, and the life. This is the importance of grace –...

When Anu the Sublime, King of the Anunnaki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land assigned to Marduk, the over-ruling son of Ea, God of righteousness, dominion...

That’s why the firm foundation of every land must be morality untarnished which, if destroyed, Rome will fall and founder.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.

Not only are animals unable to avail themselves of language to assert their own rights, but many fewer humans have a clear sense of kinship with animals than have a clear sense of kinship with...

As long as there is one person suffering an injustice; as long as one person is forced to bear an unnecessary sorrow; as long as one person is subject to an undeserved pain, the worship...

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and...

The Biblical writers not only had no knowledge of these things, but they had a perverted concept of life and the universe. Their concept was that man was a victim of blood pollution and his...

Fashion is neither moral or immoral, but it is for rebuilding the morale.

It’s because even a good man can’t always be right, that we need … rules.

We practically always excuse things when we understand them

What people do isn’t determined by where they live. It happens to be their damned fault. They decided to watch TV instead of thinking when they were in high school. They decided to blow-off courses...

All my biggest failures began with the smallest compromises.

Don’t tell a lie to be loved, speak the truth to be hated.

A society that has no wrongs will soon have no rights.

The eternal difference between right and wrong does not fluctuate, it is immutable.

If the metaphors in everyday speech are a clue, then all of us associate blankness with virtue rather than with nothingness. Think of the moral connotations of the adjectives: clean, fair, immaculate, lily-white, pure, spotless,...

Improving the world can be a nasty and ugly and difficult and dangerous business…because when you improve the world, you threaten the entrenched interests of evil people.

In civilized societies, if you are offended by a cartoon, you do not burn flags, take up guns and raid buildings, chant death to your opponents, or threaten suicide bombings. You write a letter to...

[The answer of Solon to the question ‘Which is the most perfect popular government?’]That where the least injury done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution.

Science tries to record and explain the factual character of the natural world, whereas religion struggles with spiritual and ethical questions about the meaning and proper conduct of our lives. The facts of nature simply...

If a bully mocks you, just think about your positive values compared to the bully and ignore his or her harsh comments.

of Christian morality.

Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.

Our Western society is so deeply divided between these two approaches (moralism, self-discovery) that hardly anyone can conceive of any other way to live. If you criticize or distance yourself from one, everyone assumes you...

…atheism leaves no room for excuses…

Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of Man. Every victory we seemed to win has led us, step by step, to this conclusion. All Nature’s...

The world in which we now live is a world whose outlook is so distorted that we absolutize what is relative (money-making, power, success) and relativize what is absolute (truth, moral values, and God).

A quiet conscience makes one strong!

There is nothing wrong with revenge. The wrong has already been done, or there would be no need to even the score.

It’s disgusting that Ken Blackwell preaches morality in his campaign for governor but gains wealth privately from vice.

All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.

Morality existed only in action. It arose out of action: was formed and tested in action: expressed itself in action. That was why we mustn’t cheapen it with words

The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything

It is said that man is wolf to man. I find this very unfair to wolves.

We’d do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn’t defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and...

Even the false accusations of a person of dubious morality can taint the reputation of an upright servant.