John Ridley Quotes

Hollywood likes to boast that it can elevate the national conscience.

I have always maintained that society has no business dictating morality.

Hollywood makes stuff that people absorb, and it lingers in your subconscious.

The power of Hollywood, as we know, is that it can create these images in people's minds, and they live with those images for their whole life.

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.

One cannot but regret the deliberate absence of every transcendental moral reference in governing the so-called developed society.

Much legislation is moral legislation because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres of life.

Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by subtle threads of moral and intellectual principle.

The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the wall of defense around property and life.

I don't think morality can be decided on the private level. I think you need public guidance and public support for a moral consensus. The average person has to know instinctively, without thinking too much about it, how he should raise his children.

If we leave our values at the door, we give up some of the moral glue that has held our country together

A party should be founded not merely on numbers, but on moral principles, without which it can neither accomplish useful work nor inspire confidence.

All Americans want our government to have a moral compass.

… keeper of the national conscience

We respect law, when the law respects our needs. Whenever legality clashes with morality, legality should be opposed and morality should be upheld.

I entered the House of Commons in 1832. The moral standard of legislation has been raised; that of personal conduct lowered...

A free enterprise system that is not underlaid with values is bankrupt.

My focus isn't Hollywood; my focus is using Hollywood as an example. Because what happens here does happen everywhere. It's just a really concentrated and tense version here.

Beyonce may be a gifted entertainer, but no one should really care what she thinks about any serious issue confronting our nation.

As exhausted as they may be, Republicans need to appeal to their sense of consciousness. To their principles. To what is right and wrong. To American values.

While I'm the Attorney General, we will address each issue with one question: What's the right thing to do?

In a very real sense, I represent pop culture in an iconic way. It's been very good to me, so anything I can do to help the fans to tumble along - it's good.

I think we have a responsibility to shape the zeitgeist with the movies we put out there. Because 'After Earth' isn't going to do it. 'The Expendables 3' isn't going to do it. You could make one million amazing films for the amount of money they spend on those films. I get frustrated.

If you think of human experience as a pie, then the wedge Hollywood is reflecting now is getting smaller and smaller.