Ethics and Morality

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality.

To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.

Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.

Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality; it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

Morality is the weakness of the brain.

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Morality is the custom of one’s country and the current feeling of one’s peers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibal country.

I have to live for others and not for myself; that's middle class morality.

If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.

Morality consists in suspecting other people of not being legally married.

Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

Religion is just mind control.

Many have quarreled about religion that never practiced it.

Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.

There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out.

All war is deception.

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.

There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.