John Grisham Quotes

The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.

Many an act that man does is right or wrong according to the time and place which form, so to speak, its context; strip it of its surrounding circumstances, and you tear away its meaning. Gentlemen reformers, beware of this common practice of yours! Beware of calling an act evil on Tuesday because that same act was evil on Monday!

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.

We all like to think that the line between good and evil is impermeable--that people who do terrible things, such as commit murder, treason, or kidnapping, are on the evil side of this line, and the rest of us could never cross it. But the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram studies revealed the permeability of that line. Some people are on the good side only because situations have never coerced or seduced them to cross over.

We are people in circumstances who make choices that we think are right at the time.

Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.

Despite what they tell you, there are simply no moral absolutes in a complex world.

Hey, any time you're throwing bodies over board it is to save yourself.

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

Desperate affairs require desperate measures.

When people are lonely they stoop to any companionship.

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

He [William Gladstone] made his conscience not his guide but his accomplice.

Do not understand me as intimating that the black race are by nature more depraved than the whites, for I believe the whole human family without regard to race or complexion are creatures of circumstance we are all more or less influenced by the surroundings. Abuses of matrimonial obligations by the blacks have not only been tolerated by the whites, but has been for ages encouraged and sanctioned by influencial [sic] legislative bodies. Therefore the wonder is that it is no worse.

Desperate times require desperate measures. Violence is not only the answer. It is the only answer.

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

Desperate maladies require desperate remedies.

One clings to principles for only as long as they are not put to the test. When that happens one throws them away as the peasant does his slippers.

I share my personal experiences of what is right according to me in a particular situation.

I don't believe anyone is good or bad. It's about the choices we make, about how we deal with situations.

Matters change and morals change; men remain.

Necessity urges desperate measures.

There are no bad people, there are people with insufficient information to make appropriate decisions.

There can be powerful magic in acts of desperation.

In the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article