moral burden Quotes

I was brought up a Catholic, for that you get an A level in guilt.

I don't think you can be a Catholic without an accompanying measure of guilt.

The good die young, because they see it's no use living if you have got to be good.

I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain. I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It's a terrible burden to carry. All sentient life is sacred.

When a president makes life and death decisions, he should draw strength and wisdom from broad and deep experience with the reasons for and the risks of committing our children to our defense. For no matter how many others are involved in the decision, the president is a lonely man in a dark room when the casualty reports come in.

A lord may love the men that he commands, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgement on them, or send them forth to die.

I understood that with the swipe of my pen as a prosecutor, I would have the decision in my pen to make a decision about someone's life.

God's precepts are light to the loving, heavy to the fearful.

It seemed that the good people were always cleaning up the messes.

I cannot bear the responsibility for one drop of blood.

Being raised Catholic myself, I think people who are Catholic tend to carry a lot of guilt. It's almost a joke.

It’s very hard really to look a soldier in the eye when you fear that you are sending him to his death.

Everyone in daily life carries such a heavy mixed burden on his own conscience that he is reluctant to penalize those who have been caught.

Their fate rested entirely on me. I could save them by telling the truth. I could destroy them by lying. No one should have that much power.

I waive the quantum o' the sin, The hazard of concealing; But, och! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling!

It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don't think anybody has held this job who hasn't felt personally responsible for those being killed.

You can't blame anyone else... You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices. He knew this. That's why he deserted us like we deserted those civilians. He saw the road ahead, a steep, treacherous mountain road. We'd all have to hike that road, each of us dragging the boulder of what we'd done behind us. He couldn't do it. He couldn't shoulder the weight." - Philip Adler

When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains need to wake up. I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it.

Moral Injury is differentiated from PTSD in that it directly relates to guilt and shame veterans experience as a result of committing actions that go against their moral codes. Therapists who study and treat moral injury have found that no amount of medication can relieve the pain of trying to live with these moral burdens.

Psychologically, we all have that cross to bear when we do shady things.

I've got enough guilt to start my own religion.

Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.

But guilt is guilt. It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified. It can't even be fully understood, I'm certain - it's roots run too deep into private and long-standing karma. About the only thing that saves my neck when I get to feeling this way is that guilt is an imperfect form of knowledge. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it can't be used. The hard thing to do is to put it to practical use, before it gets around to paralyzing you.

How heavy is the toll of sins and wrong that wealth, power and prestige exact from man.

Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto.