Anthony Lewis Quotes

There is such a thing as a national conscience, and it can be touched.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Actors have a social responsibility.

I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.

All politics is an extension of ethics ... We cannot leave out conscience at the caucus room door.

Law is, for the most part, positive or mandatory. It prescribes certain duties which I am to do as the condition of my civic protection. Conscience is, for the most part, negative or prohibitory in its operation. It sets before me certain evils to be undone or repented of. Thus law aims to exalt its subject, or make him conventionally righteous; while conscience aims to humiliate him

I learned that public service is a privilege that must be based on moral foundations.

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

There is no shame in black athletes not wanting to be role models, but there should be shame when they don't behave like one. It's a free country and people can do whatever they want. But just because we can doesn't mean we should.

There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience.

There is nothing politically right that is morally wrong.

What do I owe to my times, to my country, to my neighbors, to my friends? Such are the questions which a virtuous man ought often to ask himself.

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

Thus, neither my government nor myself, personally, are without ideals and responsibilities.

Conscience without judgment is superstition.

In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.

National morality, by example and by persuasion, should begin at the White House and have the good influence to reach out to every corner of the land

When moral principles, rather than persons, are candidates for power, to vote is to perform a moral duty, and not to vote is to neglect a duty

Public business … must always be done by somebody…. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.

You must legislate morality.

Since the state is a community of human beings it is as truly subject to the moral law as any private society.

Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other.

The fact that television is raising our moral conscience is a good thing.

Politicians may do as they please, so long as they violate no rule of right, no principle of justice, no law of God; but in no world, in no order, or condition, have men the right to do wrong.

The national policy would be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality