John Galsworthy Quotes

I've learned a lot about good and evil. They are not always what they appear to be.

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime's by action dignified

The moment one begins to solder right and wrong together, one's conscience becomes like a piece of plated goods.

Human nature is not black and white but black and grey.

The ugly can achieve an absoluteness beyond the reach of beauty.

For something to be beautiful it doesn’t have to be pretty.

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

The human heart likes a little disorder in its geometry.

I think we do good things and bad things, sometimes simultaneously - or they may be the same thing.

We always want to find good and bad guys, and I don't believe in that.

We are tainted by modern philosophy which has taught us that all is good, whereas evil has polluted everything and in a very real sense all is evil, since nothing is in its proper place.

That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful.

Only ugliness is obscene.

I like the ideology of there being no such thing as perfection. But I'm of the opinion that I have witnessed perfection at various times, especially in art.

There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.

I want to paint something that's gorgeous, something that's perfect. So that it's full of sadness.

When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder.

I'm not that obsessed with making representations of ugliness. Everything I've seen is beautiful.

Corrupt fantasy points us, or forms us, in a consciousness that can lead to thinking that evil is good and good is evil. In the worst case, this may have long range effects, prompting the reader intuitively, subconsciously, to do evil while thinking they're doing good.

Art has a way of confronting us, of reminding us, of engaging us, in what it means to be human, and what it means to be human is to be flawed, is to be contradictory, is to be often weak, and yet despite all of these what we would consider drawbacks, that we're also quite beautiful. Spin is the opposite.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

The good is the beautiful.

I don't believe that there's a good guy and a bad guy. Unless it's like Superman or Batman, there is no good guy and bad guy.

Morality without a sense of paradox is mean.