Moral Life Quotes

• Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Cheating, Ethics And Morals

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• Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Cheating, Integrity

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.83, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• The key to living a moral life is this: Do nothing in private that you would be ashamed to discuss openly with your mother.

  J. P. Morgan

  Mother, Keys, Would Be

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• If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover these precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Spiritual, Reality, African American

  "Rediscovering Lost Values". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Sermon at Detroit's Second Baptist Church, kinginstitute.stanford.edu. February 28, 1954.

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• You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.

  David Lloyd George

  Graduation, Commitment, Two

  "Design for Power : The Struggle for the World". Book by Frederick Lewis Schuman, 1941.

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• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Regret, Character, Men

  Prejudices, Fourth Series ch. 11 (1924)

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• Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to.

  Emile Durkheim

  Men, Groups, Causes

  Emile Durkheim (2014). “The Division of Labor in Society”, p.311, Simon and Schuster

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• You cannot live a political life, you cannot live a moral life if you're not willing to open your eyes and see the world more clearly. See some of the injustice that's going on. Try to make yourself aware of what's happening in the world. And when you are aware, you have a responsibility to act.

  Bill Ayers

  Eye, Responsibility, Political

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• The Christian faith, simply stated, reminds us that our fundamental problem is not moral; rather, our fundamental problem is spiritual. It is not just that we are immoral, but that a moral life alone cannot bridge what separates us from God. Herein lies the cardinal difference between the moralizing religions and Jesus' offer to us. Jesus does not offer to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Christian, Spiritual, Jesus

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• The times are chaotic. For me, I would hope that people look at [Angel] and gain strength by it. With everything that I do, I hope that they see people struggling to live decent, moral lives in a completely chaotic world. They see how hard it is, how often they fail, and how they get up and keep trying. That, to me, is the most important message I'm ever going to tell.

  Joss Whedon

  Struggle, Angel, People

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• To try to reform all the power structures at once would leave us with no power structure to use in our project. In any case, we will be able to see that absolute moral renewal could be attempted only by an absolute power and that a tyrannous force such as this must destroy the whole moral life of man, not renew it.

  Michael Polanyi

  Men, Trying, Reform

  Michael Polanyi, Harry Prosch (2008). “Meaning”, p.214, University of Chicago Press

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• The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from, and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult, ethical controversies of the day. First things first. And planting the ideas of virtue, of good traits in the young, comes first. In the moral life, as in life itself, we take one step at a time. Every field has its complexities and controversies. And so does ethics. And every field has its basics. So too with values.

  William Bennett

  Character, Ideas, People

  "The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories". Book edited by William Bennett, reason.com. 1993.

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• The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. Nothing will dignify and elevate science while it is sundered so wholly from the moral life of its devotee.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Biographies, Facts

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.362, Princeton University Press

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• There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.

  Will Durant

  Religion, Atheism, Example

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (2012). “The Lessons of History”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

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• The poet has to make a synthesis out of the moral life of our time, and this life is lived at this moment on a political plane.

  Rose Macaulay

  Political, Synthesis, Moral

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• A long-established occupation may form the very foundations of the moral life, that the art with which a man has solaced his toil may be the salvation of his uncertain temperament.

  Jane Addams

  Art, Men, Long

  Jane Addams (1949). “Twenty Years at Hull-House: With Autobiographical Notes”, p.132, Hayes Barton Press

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• Business is the real test of the moral life.

  Ted Malloch

  Real, Tests, Moral

  "Doing Virtuous Business: The Remarkable Success of Spiritual Enterprise". Book by Ted Malloch, 2011.

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• In the scenes of moral life the soul is at once actor and spectator.

  Joseph Marie, baron de Gerando

  Soul, Actors, Moral

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• The idea of duty--that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self--is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life.

  George Eliot

  Animal, Ideas, Self

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6068, Delphi Classics

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• No light privilege is it to have a hand in building up the moral life of these new communities; no common honour surely to help to lay side by side with the foundations of their free political institutions the broad and deep foundations of the Church of God.

  Henry Parry Liddon

  Light, Hands, Building Up

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• We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.

  William James

  Differences, Design, Special

  The Varieties of Religious Experience Lecture 3 (1902)

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• We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life - physical, intellectual, and moral life.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Wisdom, Intellectual, Politics

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.3, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• Men live a moral life, either from regard to the Diving Being, or from regard to the opinion of the people in the world; and when a moral life is practised out of regard to the Divine Being, it is a spiritual life. Both appear alike in their outward form; but in their inward, they are completely different. The one saves a man, but the other does not; for he that leads a moral life out of regard to the Divine Being is led by him, but he who does so from regard to the opinion of people in the world is led by himself.

  Emanuel Swedenborg

  Good Night, Spiritual, Men

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• The idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.

  George Eliot

  Men, Animal, Self

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6068, Delphi Classics

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• As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth - whatever the truth may be - that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life.

  June Jordan

  Children, May, Taught

  June Jordan (2009). “Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays”, p.133, Basic Books

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