Moral Rationalization Quotes

He [William Gladstone] made his conscience not his guide but his accomplice.

No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even especially those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices they would call "hard but necessary" for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.

All wrong doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the best thing to do.

People are able to justify immense cruelty and say that it is something that is sanctioned by their faith.

I think ethical ambivalence is a kind of innoculation, a way of excusing yourself in advance for something you actually want to do. No offense.

The most reasonable man always manages, when he pulls the trigger, to become a dispenser of justice.

It was like either: (A) I was a terrible guy who was knowingly doing this rotten thing over and over, or (B) it wasn’t so rotten, really, just normal, and the way to confirm it was normal was to keep doing it, over and over.

The good thing about being a hypocrite is that you get to keep your values.

The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.

The human heart is greedy; it will use religion, color, or any other excuse to justify its greed. Blame the human heart.

Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.

They have this social justification for every nasty thing they do!

Sin rarely seems sin at first beginnings.

Observe how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a state of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that those they deal with- their "loved ones" or friends or business associates or political rulers- are not merely mistaken, but evil. Observe that this dread leads them to sanction, to help and to spread the very evil whose existence they fear to acknowledge.

Most Christians with bitterness have a need to justify their sin. They usually do so with virtuous names for the sin like discernment, wisdom, etc. They attract people with complaints as it confirms their “discernment.

When one does another person an injustice, in some mysterious way it does one good to discover (or to persuade oneself) that the injured party has also behaved badly or unfairly in some little matter or other; it is always a relief to the conscience if one can apportion some measure of guilt to the person one has betrayed.

When forging money, I had always salved my conscience by concluding that I was merely extending the lie of commerce.

Nobody sees themselves as being an evil person or doing something for a bad reason. There's always something that justifies it to themselves.

In case you haven't noticed, people get hard-hearted against the people they hurt. Because they can't stand it. Literally. To think we did that to someone. I did that. So we think of all the reasons why it's okay we did whatever we did.

The human moral sense can excuse any atrocity in the minds of those who commit it, and it furnishes them with motives for acts of violence that bring them no tangible benefit.

We might make a public moan in the newspapers about the decay of conscience, but in private conversation, no matter what crimes a man may have committed or how cynically he may have debased his talent or his friends, variations on the answer Yes, but I did it for the money, satisfy all but the most tiresome objections.

Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That's what people do. And that should truly frighten us.

Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.