Ethics and Morality

Art is born of humiliation.

The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.

The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light … He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.

The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul’s faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue … Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.

Every art and every investigation, and likewise every practical pursuit or undertaking, seems to aim at some good: hence it has been well said that the Good is That at which all things aim.

They teach to talk unjustly, and—prevail.

Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lessons that this long course in human wickedness had taught us—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.

Sir Roger told them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgement rashly, that much might be said on both sides.

When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,

The highest form of doing good is like water; water benefits all things but does not seek anything (for itself).

What you do not want done to you, do not do to other people.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Whenever you have truth, it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.

Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only, but for all.

True beauty lies in purity of the heart.

Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.

To believe in something and not live it is dishonest.

The Roots of Violence: wealth without work; pleasure without conscience; knowledge without character; commerce without morality; science without humanity; worship without sacrifice; politics without principles.

The world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not enough for everyone’s greed.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.

The good man is the friend of all living things.

Service that is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures as possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.