Moral Clarity Quotes

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

Politics is dirty. Politics is exciting. Politics is often very, very difficult and disappointing. And I really would rather the world would be a little more like it was when my dad was young, where you knew pretty much where people stood on the great moral issues.

You can't judge a character, and you're never going to always play characters that are morally sound or know right from wrong.

To put the point sharply: If an informer in the French underground who sent a friend to the torture chambers of the Gestapo was equally a victim, then there can be no right or wrong in life that I understand.

My work is based on the assumption that clarity and consistency in our moral thinking is likely, in the long run, to lead us to hold better views on ethical issues.

I must conclude that Conscience, if that be the name of it, was not given us for no purpose, or for a hindrance. However flattering order and expediency may look, it is but the repose of a lethargy, and we will choose rather to be awake, though it be stormy, and maintain ourselves on this earth, and in this life, as we may, without signing our death-warrant. Let us see if we cannot stay here, where He has put us, on his own conditions. Does not his law reach as far as his light? The expedients of the nations clash with one another: only the absolutely right is expedient for all.

Surely the test of a novel's characters is that you feel a strong interest in them and their affairs the good to be successful, the bad to suffer failure. Well, in John Ward, you feel no divided interest, no discriminating interest you want them all to land in hell together, and right away.

Right is right though all condemn, and wrong is wrong though all approve.

In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is.

The genius of American culture and its integrity comes from fidelity to the light. Plain as day, we say. Happy as the day is long. Early to bed, early to rise. American virtues are daylight virtues: honesty, integrity, plain speech. We say yes when we mean yes and no when we mean no, and all else comes from the evil one. America presumes innocence and even the right to happiness.

The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error.

I don't find myself in moral turmoil. I'm not given to turmoil of any kind.

Good and bad, I define these terms, quite clear, no doubt, somehow.

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can.

I'm not ashamed of anything I've done, because if I feel ashamed, I'm not going to do it in the first place.

I know that charity covereth a multitude of sins; but it does not call evil good, because a good man has done it; it does not excuse inconsistencies, because the inconsistent brother has a high name and a fervent spirit; crookedness and worldliness are still crookedness and worldliness, though exhibited in one who seems to have reached no common height of attainment.

To be without guile is to be free of deceit, cunning, hypocrisy, and dishonesty in thought or action.

There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.

If I see something that's morally ambiguous or ambiguously beautiful or has some pull in some way, I won't censor myself; I always run towards the light.

There's no gray area in law enforcement. Evil exists in the world and it must be dealt with. And those on the side of good can feel righteous in their approach to eliminating evil. There's no ambiguity there.

Truth is not half way between right and wrong;

I am perfectly clear in my mind and in my conscience in respect of freedom of religious principles and beliefs.

My problem is I'm a man of no convictions - at least, I think I am.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

The way I was brought up by my parents and guided through my football life by the influences of various managers means that in some ways I am black and white.