"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
— Mark Twain

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after."
— Ernest Hemingway (Death in the Afternoon)

"Compassion is the basis of morality."
— Arthur Schopenhauer

"If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality."
— C. S. Lewis

"Whenever governments adopt a moral tone - as opposed to an ethical one - you know something is wrong."
— John Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization)

""The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don't have to write a preachy book to do that. You just have to make it a fun book with characters they care about, and they will become better people as a result."

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— Louis Sachar

"While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of them, if you must make at all. The only imperative that nature utters is, 'Look. Listen. Attend.'"
— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

"To see evil and call it good, mocks God. Worse, it makes goodness meaningless. A word without meaning is an abomination, for when the word passes beyond understanding the very thing the word stands for passes out of the world and cannot be recalled."
— Stephen R. Lawhead (Arthur)

"If the actions contradict the words, then the words mean nothing."
— Crimson D. Rose

"How can one be well...when one suffers morally?"
— Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)

"It's never easy to be the only monkey that walks upright."
— Luke Greer

"Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
— Albert Einstein

"The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. (from "Rediscovering Lost Values")"
— Martin Luther King Jr. (A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.)

"If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables?"
— Thomas Hardy (Under the Greenwood Tree)

"Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.
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— Theodore Roosevelt

"Second, the reason to embrace and celebrate these novels as the countercultural event that they are is due largely to the subliminal messages delivered by Harry and friends in their stolen wheelbarrows. Readers walk away, maybe a little softer on the occult than they were, but with story-embedded messages: the importance of a pure soul; love's power even over death; about sacrifice and loyalty; a host of images and shadows about Christ and how essential 'right belief' is for personal transformation and victory over internal and external evils."
— John Granger (The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains the Final Harry Potter Adventure)

"Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners
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— Laurence Sterne

"Never concede to evil…. When we concede to evil, even in a small way, we feed it, and it grows stronger.
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— Dave Wolverton (Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia)

"Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals."
— 1 Corinthians 15:33

"All attempts at law, all religion, all ethical norms might be nothing more than attempts by the weak to restrain the strong. Then, within the law, arise the new strong, who subvert the law for their own ends of power and family interest, leaving the old strong outside their circle to pursue the waiting possibilities which they call crime. The weak, the cowardly, the decent ones, live between these groups."
— George Zebrowski (Brute Orbits)

"Those who would give up essential liberties to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
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— Benjamin Franklin

"Anything artistic should have some ambiguity to it. And, uh, you know, if there's only one way of interpreting it, it's probably closing in on propaganda. So, you know, it was just examining a world in which things are very desensitized, and it was sort of even asking the question of "what is peace?" really, because, you know, there is no static condition at any given time, that's just an illusion, and so peace must be more about the ideal of peace, and working towards it on a continual basis, and valuing the idea of peace."
— Lindsey Buckingham

"To my way of thinking, the slavery issue is just an excuse to allow some people to do hateful things and feel righteous about it."
— Joan Lowery Nixon (A Dangerous Promise)

"Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency."
— Aesop

"If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say "give them up," for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people."
— Robert Louis Stevenson