Moral Equilibrium Quotes

True, Heaven prohibits certain pleasures; but one can generally negotiate a compromise.

Most virtue lies between two vices.

Evil borders upon good, and vices are confounded with virtues; as the report of good qualities is delightful to a well-disposed mind, so the relation of the contrary should not be offensive.

Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.

We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now.

For John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he's dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it's like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they're about a mile underground. He'd have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd.

And last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears as vindicator, levelling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in man, and always striking soon or late when justice is not done. What is useful will last, what is hurtful will sink.

I believe that I am God's exact intention. It's that balance of virtue and vice.

Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.

Purity without balance is its own corruption.

Moral virtue is a mean . . . between two vices, one of excess and the other of defect; . . . it is such a mean because it aims at hitting the middle point in feelings and in actions. This is why it is a hard task to be good, for it is hard to find the middle point in anything.

Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth.

Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe.

Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good

There may be more poetry than justice in poetic justice.

Precious few are those who can live in the lap of luxury ... who can keep their moral, spiritual and financial equilibrium ... while balancing on the elevated tightrope of success. ... there is about one in a hundred who can dance to the tune of success without paying the piper named Compromise.

For everybody that does something bad there's gotta be someone that does something good.

Dark things have always existed but they used to be in a proper balance with good when life was slower.

There's always the same amount of good luck and bad luck in the world. If one person doesn't get the bad luck, somebody else will have to get it in their place. There's always the same amount of good and evil, too. We can't eradicate evil, we can only evict it, force it to move across town. And when evil moves, some good always goes with it. But we can never alter the ratio of good to evil. All we can do is keep things stirred up so neither good nor evil solidifies. That's when things get scary. Life is like a stew, you have to stir it frequently, or all the scum rises to the top.

Our proportionate admission of the claims of good or of evil determines the harmony of our existence, - our health, our longevity, and our Christianity.

There are, then, three states of mind ... two vices--that of excess, and that of defect; and one virtue--the mean; and all these are in a certain sense opposed to one another; for the extremes are not only opposed to the mean, but also to one another; and the mean is opposed to the extremes.

There is no evil without its compensation.