Ellen Glasgow Quotes

The blind willingness to sacrifice people to truth, however, has always been the danger of an ethics abstracted from life.

The priest, realistically considered, is the most immoral of men, for he is always willing to sacrifice every other sort of good to the one good of his arcanum - the vague body of mysteries that he calls the truth.

Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

Ethical is 'I'll wait and do what's right even in the hardest times and even if I have to give up gains to do it.'

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

Maybe I'll learn how, but the only thing I can do is turn down parts that would hurt my conscience.

The quality of moral behaviour varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.

If the end does not justify the means, what does?

It was a morally representative act. Helms withheld the information because it would have cost him his job.

What most men call their conscience is imaginary virtue switching left or right according to self-interest.

The most disturbing thing, I think, with people that do very morally devious things more and more often is to see that they completely feel that they had no choice in the matter.

A conscience is that still small voice that people won't listen to.

Conscience gets a lot of credit that really belongs to cowardice.

It is a wicked thing to be neutral between right and wrong.

We can assume that most people, most of the time, are moral creatures. But imagine that this morality is like a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral. When that happens, morality is disengaged. If the car happens to be on an incline, car and driver move precipitously downhill. It is then the nature of the circumstances that determines outcomes, not the driver's skills or intentions.

I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.

Conscience ... seldom comes to a man's aid while he is in the zenith of health and revelling in pomp and luxury upon illgotten spoils. It is generally the last act of his life, and it comes too late to be of much service to others here, or to himself hereafter.

...And in freedom, most people find sin.

Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?" says Peeta. "It costs everything you are.

You can do something that walks a line, and invariably, whatever that line is, it will be crossed by people who don't know any better and want to ape the success.

Men must learn now with pity to dispense; For policy sits above conscience.

I think it's a sacrifice that you have to make, because you lay yourself open for people to accuse and disrespect you. But it's worth it. It's worth it because not too many people are too honest anymore.