Charlie Munger Quotes

Out there you might say there is a moral majority and if you could put them together …

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society.

Puritan standards have become the public standards of America, and you will find more of New England in Colorado Springs, Boulder, or Greeley than in most towns of Massachusetts.

Morality is a social necessity

While I was thus carrying out my obligations, I never did anything with which my conscience would have to find fault

It is hard to oppose an ideology with a tradition.

Religion does not require women to veil their hands, feet and faces or enjoin any special type of veil. Tribal custom must not impose itself on the free will of the individual

Society doesn't have values. People have values.

Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the control of storm tossed human vessel. It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the ship of its compass and thus endangers its cargo.

All morality consists in a system of rules, and the essence of all morality is to be sought for in the respect which the individual acquires for these rules.

Latin American culture is conservative, and the rural areas are tremendously conservative. I don't believe that's just a Chilean thing.

Family habits die hard.

The morality we all grew up with and are accustomed to is what feels right.

Sin is the mother, and shame the daughter of lewdness.

Conscience gets a lot of credit that really belongs to cowardice.

The Anglo-Saxon conscience does not prevent the Anglo-Saxon from sinning, it merely prevents him from enjoying his sin.

Guilt agonizes over trifles, ignores habitual wrongdoing.

In the past, the respect people had for religion meant that ethical practice was maintained through a majority following one religion or another. But this is no longer the case. We must therefore find some other way of establishing basic ethical principles.

...guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

Prudence reproaches; conscience accuses.

Just because you have a right to do something in America does not mean it is the right thing to do.

Even personal tastes are learned, in the matrix of a culture or a subculture in which we grow up, by very much the same kind of process by which we learn our common values. Purely personal tastes, indeed, can only survive in a culture which tolerates them, that is, which has a common value that private tastes of certain kinds should be allowed.

Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us.

Our religion has defined a position for women (in society): motherhood. Some people can understand this, while others can't. You cannot explain this to feminists because they don't accept the concept of motherhood.