Inspirational Quotes on Morals

“The distemper of which, as a community, we are sick, should be considered rather as a moral than a political malady.”

“And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion. “ The Prince, XVIII, 5”

“History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public with the same —“troublous storms that toss The private state, and render life unsweet.” These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion, morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights of men, are the pretexts.”

“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win, and their participants know it.”

“I might be asked, ‘Do you equally reject the approach which begins with the question “What do modern children need?” — in other words, with the moral or didactic approach?’ I think the answer is Yes. Not because I don’t like stories to have a moral: certainly not because I think children dislike a moral. Rather because I feel sure that the question ‘What do modern children need?’ will not lead you to a good moral. If we ask that question we are assuming too superior an attitude. It would be better to ask ‘What moral do I need?’ for I think we can be sure that what does not concern us deeply will not deeply interest our readers, whatever their age. But it is better not to ask the question at all. Let the pictures tell you their own moral. For the moral inherent in them will rise from whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life. But if they don’t show you any moral, don’t put one in.”

“To train a citizen is to train a critic. The whole point of education is that it should give a man abstract and eternal standards, by which he can judge material and fugitive conditions.”

“True resignation consists of this: that man, feeling his subordination to the course of world events, makes his way toward inward freedom from the fate that shapes his external existence. Inward freedom gives him the strength to triumph over the difficulties of everyday life and to become a deeper and more inward person, calm, and peaceful. Resignation, therefore, is the spiritual and ethical affirmation of one’s own existence. Only he that has gone through the trial of resignation is capable of accepting the world.”

“Non-violence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”

“All of Western civilization is highly influenced by the Bible, so much so that today people take for granted that our morals and our values are not common sense, but biblically based.”

“He (Scipio of Rome) did not consider that republic flourishing whose walls stand, but whose morals are in ruins. -- City of God, Book 1, argument #34 on The Overthrow of Rome”

“Fine manners and dignity are taught by the heart, not the dancing master.”

“Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead...Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”