#moral

The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. ↗

— Margaret Chase Smith

#character #easy #easy way #moral #moral character

It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#self-belief #society #attitude

An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. The writer's only responsibility is to his art. ↗

— William Faulkner

#morality #writing #art

The art of hearing what somebody has to say is actually, listening. ↗

— Colette Ruland Parrino

#morals-love #art

One ought always to lie, when one can do good by it; ↗

— Mark Twain

#lie #morality #art

As he grew older, which was mostly in my absence, my firstborn son, Alexander, became ever more humorous and courageous. There came a time, as the confrontation with the enemies of our civilization became more acute, when he sent off various applications to enlist in the armed forces. I didn't want to be involved in this decision either way, especially since I was being regularly taunted for not having 'sent' any of my children to fight in the wars of resistance that I supported. (As if I could 'send' anybody, let alone a grown-up and tough and smart young man: what moral imbeciles the 'anti-war' people have become.) ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#civilisation #courage #enemies #fathers #humour

Men, some to business take, some to pleasure take; but every woman is at heart a rake ↗

— Alexander Pope

#morality #women #business

Sometimes carrying the burden of an upsetting truth, and hiding it, is actually a gift you give to someone else. You bear that burden, so they don’t have to, in a situation where telling them will change nothing. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#care #honesty #love #moral #morality

If laws were real they wouldn’t need to be enforced, because if they were real they couldn’t be broken. Try breaking the law of gravity. Now that’s a law. Laws made by man are rules reflecting the current status of his moral codes. As he alters and whittles away his morality, casting bits and pieces aside, his codes change to reflect it. ↗

— Boyd Rice

#morality #change

Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully. My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise. If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons. ↗

— Ted Chiang

#islam #morality #time-travel #change