#morality

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#established #faith #liberty #morality #nor

Tell me,' asked Stas, 'what is a wicked deed?' 'If anyone takes away Kali's cow,' he answered after a brief reflection, 'that then is a wicked deed.' 'Excellent!' exclaimed Stas, 'and what is a good one?' This time the answer came without any reflection: 'If Kali takes away the cow of somebody else, that is a good deed.' Stas was too young to perceive that similar views of evil and good deeds were enunciated in Europe not only by politicians but by whole nations. ↗

— Henryk Sienkiewicz

#good-and-evil #morality #political-philosophy #political-science #religion

Even though Christ Himself would not deliver us from the power of the Totalitarian State, as He did not deliver Himself, we must see His purpose in it all. Maybe his children are being persecuted by the world in order that they might withdraw themselves from the world. Maybe His most violent enemies may be doing His work negatively, for it could be the mission of totalitarianism to preside over the liquidation of a modern world that became indifferent to God and His moral laws. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#god-s-will #jesus #morality #the-cross #totalitarianism

There is a tone of morality throughout the rural districts of England, which is unhappily wanting in the large towns and the centres of particular manufactures. ↗

— Henry Mayhew

#districts #england #large #manufactures #morality

You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me. ↗

— Jim Butcher

#good #good-and-evil #humor #morality #humor

When the gap between the world of the city and the world my grandfather had presented to me as right and good became too wide and depressing to tolerate, I'd turn to my other great love, which was pulp adventure fiction. Despite the fact that [he] would have had nothing but scorn and loathing for all of those violent and garish magazines, there was a sort of prevailing morality in them that I'm sure he would have responded to. The world of Doc Savage and The Shadow was one of absolute values, where what was good was never in the slightest doubt and where what was evil inevitably suffered some fitting punishment. The notion of good and justice espoused by Lamont Cranston with his slouch hat and blazing automatics seemed a long way from that of the fierce and taciturn old man I remembered sitting up alone into the Montana night with no company save his bible, but I can't help feeling that if the two had ever met they'd have found something to talk about. For my part, all those brilliant and resourceful sleuths and heroes offered a glimpse of a perfect world where morality worked the way it was meant to. Nobody in Doc Savage's world ever killed themselves except thwarted kamikaze assassins or enemy spies with cyanide capsules. Which world would you rather live in, if you had the choice? ↗

— Alan Moore

#fiction #morality #pulp-fiction #love

Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better. ↗

— Mark Twain

#morality #business

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: The horror! The horror! ↗

— Joseph Conrad

#morality #struggle #the-horror #change

Imperfection is the doorway for which perfection may step through...perfection must be enforced, it must be soldered into the eyes of the blind, it must be severed methodically and sewn into the very warmth that keeps at bay the cold of the night. Imperfection is the fire that sets alight the dark passage through which perfection wanders...and we must embrace it all, we must have purpose to survive. ↗

— Dave Matthes

#death #dread #forgiveness #goal #greed

All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them ↗

— George Orwell

#nationalism #politics #change