Private Morality Quotes

I object to Parliament trying to regulate private morality in matters which only affects the person who commits the offence.

Ultimately Warhol's private moral reference was to the supreme kitsch of the Catholic church.

Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt.

I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no seperate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.

The very essence of our civilization is that we give a paramount place to morality in all our affairs, public or private.

The national policy would be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality

I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man.

I don't think morality can be decided on the private level. I think you need public guidance and public support for a moral consensus. The average person has to know instinctively, without thinking too much about it, how he should raise his children.

Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

It has always been a peculiarity of the human race that it keeps two sets of morals in stock-the private and the real, and the public and the artificial.

Watergate is the great liberal illusion that you can have public virtue without private morality.

The tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no seperate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality...

Morality is a private and costly luxury.

Any society's upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else d'you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts.

Evil…doesn’t mean doing things that have bad consequences for people. It means private thoughts and actions that are not to “the Christian majority’s” private liking.

It is agreed, in this country, that if a man can arrange his religion so that it perfectly satisfies his conscience, it is not incumbent on him to care whether the arrangement is satisfactory to anyone else or not.

The public scandal is what constitutes the offence: sins sinned in secret are no sins at all.

It is a waste of time to dissipate one's moral zeal in disapproving of royal persons who have mistresses.

Honesty and interest are as intimately connected in the public as in the private code of morality.

It is a mindless philosophy that assumes that one's private beliefs have nothing to do with public office. Does it make sense to entrust those who are immoral in private with the power to determine the nation's moral issues and, indeed, its destiny? One of the most dangerous and terrifying trends in America today is the disregard for character as a central necessity in a leader's credentials. The duplicitous soul of a leader can only make a nation more sophisticated in evil.

For when morality is strictly up to the individual, with no judgment possible by communities it is likely that everyone will do what is right in his own eyes.... America will then become a land composed of strangers whose religion, if any, is a private matter, and who are bound by no social ties or common aspirations.

In a free society a large degree of human activity is none of the government's business. We should make criminal what's going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.

The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.