Josh Billings Quotes

You will lose what you value most... It hadn't been me that Rhonda was talking about. It hadn't even been Dimitri's life. What you value most. It had been his soul.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

What has a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

For what matters if I gain the whole world, but lose my soul?

There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.

To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?

We need not envy certain people their great wealth; they acquired it at a heavy cost, which would not suit us; they staked their rest, their health, their honour and their conscience to acquire it, the price is too high, and there is nothing to be gained by such a bargain.

A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, a bad man survives but loses his soul.

How much did you get for your soul?

I don't wanna gain the whole world and lose my soul.

In trying to avoid one sin I've committed another.

I think the public doesn't understand that one of the reasons I haven't stood up for myself is because in order to do that, I have to stoop to a level that further humiliates other people.

In our hearts there is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.

It is impossible to reign innocently.

To save our imperiled honor everything must be sacrificed, even virtue.

There’s a fear that grasps each individual and what they think is right and what they think is wrong.

I think you always feel like you're about a hair's breadth away from being a bad actor anyway... It's not too hard to let the rope go slack, so to speak.

The lesser evil is also evil.

Alanna didn't approve of lying, but in a pinch a lie was sometimes better than the truth.

Our dreams of a pure virtue are dissolved in a situation in which it is possible to exercise the virtue of responsibility toward a community of nations only by courting the prospective guilt of the atomic bomb.

An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.

Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.

If you choose the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil.

I had three choices: to conform to my own beliefs, which meant death; complete silence, which meant another kind of death; to pay a tribute, a bribe. I chose the third solution by writing The Long Winter.

You ever go to shop for tuna, and it says "dolphin safe", and you look at it and kind of go, "Yeah, but"-like somehow you think it's not going to be as good? Like, "I want to do the right thing-but it's probably kind of bland without the dolphin."