Ethics and Morality

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

Morality is the weakness of the brain.

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.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore, all murderers are punished unless they kill large numbers to the sound of trumpets.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.

Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth.

Government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid.