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. . . MORAL ASSASINATION see: "HURTING (SOMEONE)" for related links There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires, that are written with wit and spirit, are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. --Joseph Addison (16721719) English essayist, poet, and dramatist. "The Spectator" [27 March 1711] There are different ways of assassinating a man by pistol, sword, poison, or moral assassination. They are the same in their results except the last is more cruel. --Napoleon I (17691821) Emperor of France [1804-15]. In _Napoleon in His Own Words: From the French of Jules Bertaut_ [1916]. Never does a man portray his own character more vividly than in his manner of portraying another's. --Jean Paul Richter (17631825) German novelist. _Titan_ [4 vols., 1800-03] "Twenty-Eighth Jubilee"  . . see: "BELIEF" for related links Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. --C.S. [Clive Staples] Lewis (18981963) British scholar and novelist. _God in the Dock_ [1948] Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks_ [1956] . . see: "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for related links No, I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins. --Frederick Douglass [Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey] (c.18181895) American abolitionist, reformer, and writer. Speech at Market Hall, New York, N.Y. [22 October 1847]. There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as "moral indignation," which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. The *indignant* person has for once the satisfaction of despising and treating a creature as *inferior,* coupled with the feeling of his own superiority and rightness. --Erich Fromm (19001980) American philosopher and psychologist. _Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics_ [1947] To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior "righteous indignation" this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist (Grandson of T.H. Huxley.) _Crome Yellow_ [1921] Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. --H.G. Wells (18661946) English novelist. _The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman_ [1914] . . see: "HUBRIS" see: "SNOBS" see: "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links Americans ... judge themselves by a higher standard than anyone else. Americans are a self-scrutinizing people: even if they have acted well in a given situation, they are always ready to examine whether they could have acted better. At some subliminal level, everybody knows this. Thus if the Chinese, the Arabs, or the sub-Saharan Africans slaughter ten thousand of their own people, the world utters a collective sigh and resumes its normal business. We sadly expect the Chinese, the Arabs, and the sub-Saharan Africans to do these things. By contrast, if America, in the middle of a war, accidentally bombs a school or a hospital and kills two hundred civilians, there is an immediate uproar and an investigation is launched. What all this demonstrates, of course, is America's evident moral superiority. --Dinesh D'Souza (b. 1961) American author. _What's So Great About America_ [2002] It is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts. --John Flavel (16271691) English Presbyterian clergyman. Attributed in _Hogg's Weekly Instructor_ [7 November 1846]. I hate the man who builds his name On ruins of another's fame. --John Gay (16851732) English poet and dramatist. _Fables_, pt. 1 [1727], "The Poet and the Rose" Of all the illusions that beset mankind, none is quite so curious as that tendency to suppose that we are mentally and morally superior to those who differ from us in opinion. --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." "The Philistine" (mag.) [March 1903] America will believe it her duty to concern herself with the rest of the world, but she will not do this without being paid for it. The payment she will demand will not be material but moral. No country is more convinced than this one that she is right, or is more arrogant in her moral superiority. If she intervenes in the affairs of the world it will be to impose her ideas, and she will consider her inter- vention a blessing for lost and suffering humanity. The prospect is cheerless. Whether run by the American left or right, the world will in either case suffer a singular form of tyranny, at once biblical and materialistic. --Raoul de Roussy de Sales French journalist and historian. _The Making of Tomorrow_ [1943] "7 July 1942" ----- sanctimonious (adj.) Holier-than-thou: making an exaggerated show of holiness or moral superiority. . . see: "CONFIDENCE" see: "MOTIVATION" see: "SPIRIT" see: "THE MIND" for other related links Morale is the state of mind. It is steadfastness and courage and hope. It is confidence and zeal and loyalty. It is elan, esprit de corps and determination. --George C. (Catlett) Marshall (18801959) American general and statesman. In _Selected Speeches and Statements of General of the Army George C. Marshall_, ed. by H.A. De Weerd [1945]. . . see: "BEHAVIOR" see: "CONDUCT" see: "DUTY" see: "ETHICS" see: "GOODNESS" see: "HONESTY & HONOR" see: "IMMORALITY" see: "PRINCIPLES" see: "RIGHT & WRONG" see: "VICE" see: "VIRTUE" see: "CHARACTER" for other related links Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States. To the Officers of the First Brigade of the 3rd Division of the Massachusetts Militia [11 October 1798]. A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. ... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. ... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security. --Samuel Adams (17221803) American revolutionary leader. Letter to James Warren [12 February 1779]. It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. --Alfred Adler (18701937) Austrian psychologist. In Phyllis Bottome _Alfred Adler: Apostle of Freedom_ [1939]. If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them. --Louisa May Alcott (18321888) American novelist; daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott. Critique of _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ [1885]. Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice. --Jacques Barzun (b. 1907) French-born American writer, educator, and cultural historian. _From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present_ [2000] Most men are bad. --Bias (c. 6th cent. B.C.) Greek politician of Priene; considered one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Quoted in Nathaniel Wanley _The Wonders of the Little World_, p. 251 [1806 ed.]. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them. --Bible "Matthew" 7:12 TV, which compared to music plays a comparatively small role in the formation of young people's character and taste, is a consensus monsterthe Right monitors its content for sex, the Left for violence, and many other interested sects for many other things. But the music has hardly been touched, and what efforts have been made are both ineffectual and misguided about the nature of the problem. The result is nothing less than parents' loss of control over their children's moral education at a time when no one else is seriously concerned with it. --Allan Bloom (19301992) American writer and educator. _The Closing of the American Mind_ [1987] That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong. --Rev. William John Henry Boetcker (18731962) German-born American minister and author. Quoted in "Forbes" [1948]. Food comes first, then morals. --Bertolt Brecht (18981956) German dramatist. _Die Dreigroschenoper_ (The Threepenny Opera), II, iii [1928] - Fashionable dances as now carried on are revolting to every feeling of delicacy and propriety and are fraught with the greatest danger to millions. --Horace Bushnell (18021876) American theologian. Attributed in Charles Noel Douglas _Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical_, p. 423 [1917]. & note: Social dissipation, as witnessed in the ball-room, is the abettor of pride, the instigator of jealousy, it is the sacrificial altar of health, it is the defiler of the soul, it is the avenue of lust and it is the curse of every town in America. --Thomas De Witt Talmage (18321902) American clergyman. Attributed in Charles Noel Douglas _Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical_, p. 422 [1917]. - [O tempora! O mores!] Oh, the times! Oh, the customs! --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. _In Catilinam_, Speech I, ch. I I would rather be the author of one original thought than conqueror of a hundred battles. Yet moral excellence is so much superior to intellectual, that I ought to esteem one virtue more valuable than a hundred original thoughts. --William Benton Clulow (18021882) English clergyman. _Aphorisms and Reflections_ [1843] I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances. --Confucius (551479 B.C.) K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher. _The Best of Confucius_, translated by James R. Ware [1950] We do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen. If the foundation be firm, the foundation will stand. --Calvin Coolidge (18721933) American Republican statesman and President [1923-1929]. Commencement Address at Wheaton College, Norton Massachusetts [17 June 1921]. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery. ... Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause ... True courage and manhood come from the consciousness of the right attitude toward the world, the faith in ones own purpose, and the sufficiency of ones own approval as a justification for ones own acts. --Clarence Darrow (18571938) American lawyer. Quoted in S.T. Joshi (ed.), _Closing Arguments: Clarence Darrow on Religion, Law, and Society_ [2005]. If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be permissible, even cannibalism. --Fyodor Dostoyevsky (18211881) Russian novelist, journalist, and short story writer. _The Brothers Karamazov_, bk. II, ch. 6 [1879-80] Life [...] seems to be divided into two periods: in the first we indulge, in the second we preach. --Will Durant (18851981) American philosopher and writer. _The Mansions of Philosophy_ [1929] Morality is of the highest importance but for us, not for God. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist. In a reply to a letter [August 1927]. Debasing the Moral Currency. --George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (18191880) English novelist. Title of essay in _Impressions of Theophrastus Such_ [1879]. Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known. --F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940) American novelist. _The Great Gatsby_, ch. 3 [1925] It is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts. --John Flavel (16271691) English Presbyterian clergyman. Attributed in _Hogg's Weekly Instructor_ [7 November 1846]. A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district all studied and appreciated as they merit are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. Attributed in James Willis Westlake _Common-School Literature, English and American_, p. 109 [1877]. ^^ The Mann Act was supposed to help crush white slavery, but the Supreme Court gave it a much broader reading. A key case involved two young men from Sacramento, California, Drew Caminetti and his buddy Maury Diggs. They were in their twenties, married with children, and from somewhat prominent families. Fidelity was not their strong suit. They went gallivanting off to Nevada with two young women in tow. This trip created something of a scandal; and the two men were arrested and, eventually, tried for violating the Mann Act. Of course, there was not a hint of white slavery, or prostitution, or commercialized vice in the case; no indication that the women were the least bit unwilling to have their fun. Nonetheless, the two men were convicted of violating the Mann Act. The Supreme Court affirmed: Caminetti and Diggs had crossed the state line for an "immoral purpose," and this was enough to satisfy the act. The Justice Department claimed that it was interested in commercialized sex, that for the most part it left alone the amateurs at the debauchery game - that is, people like Caminetti and Diggs. But the record shows otherwise. All sorts of cases were tried in the courts, cases which ranged "from seduction and betrayal, to casual romantic trips, to serious relationships of living together." From 1922 to 1937 the FBI looked into 50,500 alleged violations of the Mann Act. Many of the investigations started with complaints sent in by busybodies, people with grudges, outraged husbands, wives, parents, and misceIlaneous others. For example, a woman calling herself "a mother" sent a letter to the Department of Justice from West Palm Beach in 1927, in which she claimed "There is a J.S. Nouser liveing at 727 Kanuga drive with a woman that he not married to and they was on a trip this summer to california and new York they stoped at the pennsylvania Hotel in new york as man and wife." The Mann Act was applied to women, too, if they violated the sexual code; a study of women in federal prison between 1927 and 1937 found that about a quarter of the Mann Act violators were simply unmarried women who dared to travel about with married men. Scandalized and angry wives sometimes blew the whistle on their husbands. More sinister was the prosecution of the black boxer Jack Johnson, whose sex life crossed the state line and the color line. He was tried in 1913 and sentenced to prison. The rock-and-roll singer Chuck Berry was sent to prison similarly in 1960; and Charlie Chaplin, whose real sin was his leftist leanings, was tried but acquitted in 1943. Critics had warned that the Mann Act was a fertile breeding ground for blackmail. Sure enough, in January 1916 detectives arrested a gang of alleged Mann Act blackmailers. These men supposedly would "shadow" rich men, following them across state lines with their girlfriends.They would then confront the men, claim to be United States marshals, and demand payoffs. Sometimes the gang "employed ... attractive women to assist in creating evidence." The victims, naturally enough, were reluctant to step forward. --Lawrence M. Friedman (b. 1930) _American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002], ch. 4 "Crime and Punishment in the New Century" ^^ First, it is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or vanity, the price has to be paid at last; not always by the chief offenders, but paid by some one. Justice and truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes at last to them, in French revolutions and other terrible ways. --James A. Froude (18181894) English historian. _Short Studies on Great Subjects_ [1894] "The Science of History" No girl should permit a boy to be so familiar as to toy with her hands, or play with her rings; to handle her curls, or encircle her waist with his arm. Such impudent intimacy should never be tolerated for a moment. --Alex M. Gow, _Good Morals and Gentle Manners_ [1873] - You remember the Permanent Record. In school, you were constantly being told that if you screwed up, the news would be sent to the principal and placed in your Permanent Record. Nothing more needed to be said. No one had ever seen a Permanent Record. That didn't matter. We knew it was there. We imagined a steel filing cabinet crammed full of Permanent Records one for each kid in the school. I think we always assumed that our Permanent Record was sent on to college with us and later to our employer, probably with a duplicate to the U.S. government. I have a terrible feeling that mine was the last generation to know what a Permanent Record was and that it has disappeared as a concept in society. There was a time when people really stopped before they did something they knew was deceitful, immoral or unethical. They didn't stop because they were such holy folks. They stopped because they had a nagging fear that if they did the foul deed, it would end up on their Permanent Record. At some point in the last few decades, I'm afraid, people wised up to something that amazed them: there is no Permanent Record. They discovered that regardless of how badly you fouled up your life or the lives of others, there was nothing about it on your record. You would always be forgiven, no matter what. So pretty soon men and women instead of fearing the Permanent Record started laughing at it. The things that they used to be ashamed of, that once made them cringe when they thought about them, now became "interesting" aspects of their personalities. If the details were weird enough, the kinds of things that would have really jazzed up the Permanent Record, people sometimes wrote books confessing them, and the books became best- sellers. They found out that other people far from scorning them would line up in bookstores to get their autographs. Talk-show hosts would say, "Thank you for being so honest with us. I'm sure our audience understands how much guts it takes for you to tell us these things." Permanent Records were being opened up for the whole world to see and the sky did not fall in. As Americans began to realize that there probably never had been a Permanent Record, they deduced that any kind of behavior was permissible. All you had to do was say, "That was a real crazy period in my life." All would be okay. And that is where we are today. We have accepted the notion that no one is keeping track. No one is even allowed to keep track. I doubt you could scare a school kid nowadays by telling him that the principal was going to inscribe something on his Permanent Record; the kid would probably file a suit under the Freedom of Information Act and expect to obtain his Permanent Record by recess. Either that, or call it up on his or her computer and delete it. As for us adults, it has been so long since we believed in the Permanent Record that the very mention of it now brings a nostalgic smile to our faces. We feel naive for ever having believed there was such a thing. But who really knows? On some distant day when we check out of this earthly world and approach the gates of our new eternal home, our smiles may freeze. We just might be greeted by a heavenly presence sitting there, casually leafing through a dusty, battered volume of our Permanent Record, as we come jauntily into view. --Bob Greene (b. 1947) American journalist. _Cheeseburgers: The Best of Bob Greene_ [1985] - The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong." --Sydney J. Harris (19171986) American journalist. _Pieces of Eight_ [1982] 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 (18891961) American novelist. _Death in the Afternoon_, ch. I [1932] The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (18411935) Justice of the United States Supreme Court, legal historian, and philosopher. "Schenck v. United States" [1919] It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped. --Hubert H. Humphrey (19111978) 38th vice-president of the United States [1965-69] and senator [1949-65, 1971-78]. Speech at dedication of Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Washington, D.C. [1 November 1977]. We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. --William Ralph Inge (18601954) English writer and Dean of St. Paul's [1911-34]. _Outspoken Essays: Second Series_ [1922] "The Idea of Progress" - Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were the whole world looking at you, and act accordingly. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to Peter Carr [19 August 1785]. If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to Thomas Law [13 June 1814]. - - Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. _Rasselas_ [1759] If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791] "14 July 1763". - All luxury corrupts either the morals or the taste. --Joseph Joubert (17541824) French philosopher. _Recueil des pensιes de M. Joubert_ ("Collected Thoughts of Mr. Joubert") [1838] Ethics may be defined as the obligations of morality. --Lajos Kossuth (18021894) Hungarian lawyer and journalist. Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 136 [1886]. ^^ Clergymen across the United States denounced Sarah Bernhardt from their pulpits as the 'whore of Babylon', thereby assuring massive attendance at her performances. The Episcopalian bishop of Chicago having delivered a particularly effective piece of publicity, Bernhardt arranged for her agent to send him a note and a bank draft. 'Your Excellency,' the note read, 'I am accustomed, when I bring an attraction to your town, to spend $400 on advertising. As you have done half the advertising for me, I herewith enclose $200 for your parish.' --Edward Leeson _The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ [2005] "Church and Clergy" ^^ In my youth ... there were certain words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can't say 'girl'. --Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American songwriter and satirist. Quoted in _Washington Post_ [3 January 1982]. - Stand with anybody that stands *right*. Stand will him while he is right and *part* with him when he goes wrong. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [1861-65]. Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Peoria, Illinois [16 October 1854]. You must remember that some things that are *legally* right ar not *morally* right. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [1861-65]. Remark to a prospective client refusing to take his case (involving a $600 claim) against a widow with six children, 1840s? In Francis Fisher Browne, _The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln_, 2. 6, [1887]. - I dare say you need not be told how sensual vice abounds in rural districts. Here it is flagrant beyond anything I ever could have looked for: and here while every justice of the peace is filled with disgust and every clergyman with (almost) despair at the drunkenness, quarrelling and extreme licentiousness with women here is dear good old [William] Wordsworth for ever talking of rural innocence and deprecating any intercourse with towns, lest the purity of his neighbours should be corrupted. --Harriet Martineau writing from the Lake District in 1846 to Elizabeth Barrett. Quoted in _History in Quotations_ M.J. Cohan and John Major [2004]. - Time is a great legalizer, even in the field of morals. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _A Book of Prefaces_ [1917] The truth is, as every one knows, that the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense has ever painted a picture worth looking at. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Prejudices: First Series_ [1919] "The Blushful Mystery: Art and Sex" The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act; even when it has worked and he has not been caught. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Prejudices: Fourth Series_, ch. 11 [1924] - You must know when, how, and to whom you must say "no." This involves considerable difficulty at times. You must not hurt people, or want to hurt them, yet you must not placate them at the price of infidelity to higher and more essential values. --Thomas Merton (19151968) American Trappist monk and author. _Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander_ [1966] That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next. --attributed to John Stuart Mill (18061873) English philosopher and social reformer. I will not do that which my conscience tells me is wrong to gain the huzzahs of thousands, or the daily praise of all the papers which come from the press; I will not avoid doing what I think is right, though it should draw on me the whole artillery of libels, all that falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity of a deluded population can swallow. --William Murray (Lord Mansfield) (17051793) Scottish barrister and judge. Quoted in "The European Magazine" [June 1793]. When I look back upon the more than sixty years that I have spent on this entrancing earth, and when I am asked which of all the changes that I have witnessed appears to me to be the most significant, I am inclined to answer that it is the loss of a sense of shame. --Harold Nicolson (18861968) English diplomat, politician, and writer. Quoted in Sidney Greenberg _A Treasury of the Art of Living_, p. 143 [1963]. Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose. --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _The Anti-Christ_ [1895] Clinton has vindicated the anti-Vietnam, draft-dodging, drug-taking behavior of the sixties. ... The Silent Majority was a reaction to that moral decay, but who's going to do it now? The Clintons are going to be our moral symbols for four years, maybe eight. Four years, and maybe we can recover. Eight, and the damage will be irreparable. --Richard Nixon (19131994) American Republican statesman, President [19691974]. Election night [1992]. When one thinks of the lies and betrayals of those years [the Thirties], the cynical abandonment of one ally after another, the imbecile optimism of the Tory press, the flat refusal to believe that the dictators meant war, even when they shouted it from the house-tops, the inability of the moneyed class to see anything wrong whatever in concentration camps, ghettos, massacres and undeclared wars, one is driven to feel that moral decadence played its part as well as mere stupidity. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. _Who are the War Criminals?_ in "Tribune" [22 October 1943]. Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is a much higher and truer courage. --Wendell Phillips (18111884) American abolitionist and reformer. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 54 [1886]. The modest fan was lifted up no more, and virgins smiled at what they blushed before. --Alexander Pope (16881744) English poet. _An Essay on Criticism_, pt. I [1711] In olden days a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking Now, heaven knows, Anything goes. --Cole Porter (18921964) American songwriter. "Anything Goes" [1934 song] The American Elite ... is almost beyond redemption. Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. --Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (b. 1957) British journalist. _The Secret Life of Bill Clinton_ [1997] I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they do today. --Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (18791935) American humorist and actor. Quoted in P.G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton _Bring on the Girls; The Improbable Story of Our Life in Musical Comedy_ [1953]. To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [1901-09]. In Stephen Bates, "A Textbook of Virtues", _New York Times_ [8 Januarary 1995]. The only moral lesson which is suited for a child the most important lesson for every time of life is this: 'Never hurt anybody.' --Jean Jacques Rousseau (17121778) French philosopher and novelist. _Emile; or, Treatise on Education_ [1762] I learned years ago not to doze off or leave my wallet lying around in the presence of people who tell me that they are more moral than others. --Carl T. Rowan (b. 1925) American journalist. "In the Name of Morality", _Washington Star_ [17 October 1980] As I grow older and older And totter towards the tomb, I find that I care less and less Who goes to bed with whom. --Dorothy L. Sayers (18931957) English writer of detective fiction. Quoted in Janet Hitchman _Such a Strange Lady_ [1975]. - In this modern "nonjudgmental" era, the accusation of hypocrisy is about the only acceptable judgment call. Today, hypocrisy appears to be the only universally recognized sin and evil not even infidelity, lying and cheating, out-of-wedlock births or addictions are considered as reprehensible. The fact is that we as a society have caved in, dumbed down our expectations and morality, and called it tolerance and freedom. Anyone who dares defend standards risks relentless attacks in order to find some flaw or inconsistency that can be used against him to nullify the message. The epithet of "hypocrite" is hurled at people who are unafraid to make judgments based on a set of standards by people who have no standards at all. --Dr. Laura Schlessinger (b. 1947) American radio host. "There's A Difference Between Change And Hypocrisy" in "Chicago Tribune" [15 November 1998]. - What once were vices, are now the manners of the day. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. _Epistulae ad Lucilium_, xxxix, as quoted in William S. Walsh _The International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations_ [1908]. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge; For, on their answer, will we set on them, And God befriend us, as our cause is just! --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Henry IV_, V, i [1597] A society like ours, which professes no one religion and has allowed all religions to decay, which indulges freedom to the point of license and individualism to the point of anarchy, needs all the support that responsible, cultivated homes can furnish. I hope your generation will provide a firmer shelter for civilized standards. --Alan K. Simpson (b. 1931) American politician. U.S. Senator from Wyoming [1979-97]. Commencement address at Vassar [1965]. - Liberty is quite as much a moral as a political growth, the result of free individual action, energy, and independence. --Samuel Smiles (18121904) Scottish author. _Self-Help_, ch. I [1859] 'One might almost fear,' writes a thoughtful woman, 'seeing how the women of to-day are lightly stirred up to run after some new fashion or faith, that heaven is not so near to them as it was to their mothers and grandmothers.' --Samuel Smiles (18121904) Scottish author. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 58 [1886]. - The art of acting morally is behaving *as if everything we do matters.* --Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) American feminist, jounalist, and founder of "Ms." magazine. "The Birth of Ms." in _New York_ (mag.) [19 April 1993]. There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person I have to make good: myself. --Robert Louis Stevenson (18501894) Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist. "A Christmas Sermon" in _Scribner's Magazine_ [December 1888]. If you destroy delicacy and a sense of shame in a young girl, you deprave her very fast. --Harriet Beecher Stowe (18111896) American writer and philanthropist. [Sister of Henry Ward Beecher, daughter of Lyman Beecher]. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, ch. 29 [1852] The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his *intellectual* superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can *do* wrong proves his *moral* inferiority to any creatures that *cannot*. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. "What is Man?", sec. 6 [1906] Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good. --attributed to Marquis de Vauvenargues (17151747) French moralist and essayist. - I want my attorney, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to believe in God, and I think that then I shall be robbed and cuckolded less often. --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. _Philosophical Dictionary_ [1764] & see: If I did not believe in God, I should still want my doctor, my lawyer and my banker to do so. --attributed to G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (18741936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. - - Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. --George Washington (17321799) American general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution [17751783] and first president of the United States [17891797]. In his Farewell Address [17 September 1796]. Though I prize, as I ought, the good opinion of my fellow citizens; yet, if I know myself, I would not seek popularity at the expense of one social duty, or moral value. --George Washington (17321799) American general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution [17751783] and first president of the United States [17891797]. Quoted in Aaron Bancroft _An Essay on the Life of George Washington_ [1807]. - I make no defense of expediency, military, political, temporary, or otherwise. For I believe the moral losses of expediency always far outweigh the temporary gains. And I believe that every drop of blood saved through expediency will be paid for by twenty drawn by the sword. --Wendell Wilkie (18921944) American lawyer and the Republican nominee for the 1940 presidential election (won by FDR). _One World_ [1943] - Two guys were having a discussion about sex, marriage, and values. Gary said, "I didn't sleep with my wife before we got married, did you?" Charlie replied, "I'm not sure, What was her maiden name?" - ----- dissolute [DIS-uh-loot], adjective: Loose in morals and conduct; marked by indulgence in sensual pleasures or vices. edify [ED-uh-fy], transitive verb: To instruct and improve, especially in moral and religious knowledge; to teach. louche [LOOSH], adjective: Of questionable taste or morality; disreputable or indecent; dubious; shady. pestiferous [pes-TIF-uh-ruhs], adjective: 1. Bearing or bringing disease. 2. Infected with or contaminated by a pestilential disease. 3. Morally evil or dangerous to society; pernicious. 4. Bothersome; troublesome; annoying. reprobate (noun) A morally unprincipled person. Synonym: miscreant tart (noun, adjective) [tah(r)t] (Noun 1) A small pie with a shallow shell, no covering, and various fillings, usually of fruit; (Noun 2) a wanton or loose girl, a woman who wears cheap, gaudy clothes; (Adjective) pungently sour, sharp to the taste. end page | MACARTHUR (DOUGLAS) - MALICE | MAN - MARINES | MARRIAGE | MARTYRS - MAUGHAM (WILLIAM SOMERSET) | McCARTHY - MEANNESS | MEDIA (THE) | MEDICINE - MEMORIAL DAY | MEMORIES - MEMORY | MEN - MEN v. WOMEN | MENTAL ILLNESS - MILK | MIND (THE) - MINDING OWN BUSINESS | MINNESOTA - MISERY | MISFORTUNE - MISSOURI | MISTAKES | MISTAKEN IDENTITY - MODESTY | MONEY | MONROE - MOON | MORAL ASSASINATION - MORALITY | MORNING - MOUNTAINS | MOVIE DIALOGUE - MUSHROOMS | MUSIC - MYTHOLOGY | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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