The United States has lost her unique position as a leader in the progress of civilization and has taken up her place simply as one of the grasping and selfish nations of the present day.
We are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and peoples.
The descent to hell is easy and those who begin by worshipping power, soon worship evil.
Everything degenerates in the hands of man.
Fattened in vice, so callous and so gross, he sins and sees not, senseless of his loss.
Corrupt citizens breed corrupt rulers, and it is the mob who finally decides when virtue shall die.
Nobody ever became depraved all at once. [Lat., Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.]
No one every suddenly became depraved.
These days to be great is to exceed on prosperity; greatness today has nothing to do with moral magnanimity.
If there's anything to learn from the history of movies, it's that corruption leads to further corruption, not to innocence.
I refuse to bring my son up in a world corrupt as it is now.
There's a lot to be done; I just see a total moral decay in our society.
There's a danger our fiscal bankruptcy might overtake our moral bankruptcy.
On Wall Street, the industry in which I grew up, a culture in which 'my word is my bond' shifted over the past few decades toward one where the big print can say 'Free' while the small print gives the real costs.
The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.
An age deficient in idealism has ever been one of immorality and superficial attainment, since without the sense of ideas, nobility of character becomes of rare attainment, if possible.
A depraved culture supports a depraved politics and vice versa.
I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.
Wickedness comes to its height by degrees. He that dares say of a less sin, Is it not a little one? will ere long say of a greater, Tush, God regards it not!
This is a fallen world. People lie, the truth gets distorted, and that's the way it is. What's for dinner ?
Today we live in a society suffering from ethical rickets.
The diminution of public virtue is usually attended with that of public happiness, and the public liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.
A sturdy, hardened sinner shall advance to the utmost pitch of impiety, with less reluctance than he took the first step while his conscience was yet vigilant and tender.
I do not know what horrified me most [during the depression]: the economic misery of my companions [or] their moral and ethical coarseness.
In proportion as a man is selfish, so far has he receded from the motive which constitutes virtue.
