Stephen Colbert Quotes

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing, and, as the judgment, so also the conscience may be erroneous.

Conscience is merely our own judgment of the right or wrong of our actions, and so can never be a safe guide unless enlightened by the word of God.

This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

Modern morality is all about perception.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

There's no such thing as morality.

When we talk about self-confrontations, we are speaking about moral issues rather than social issues.

I want people to come away from my book with questions. Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers.

I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.

I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.

What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

When it's a moral grey zone, the audience has to think about what they feel and what they think is right or wrong. You want to affect your audience and make them think.

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.

Our concerns aren't always appropriate or morally elevated.

We don't have some message from God that gives us a list of what's good and what's not good. Obviously, we have to make our own flawed judgments about each thing.

Willing or preferring is the same with respect to good and evil, that judging is with respect to truth or falsehood.

I don't know how to play evil.

If you say morality is just what you like, you lose the metaphysical level of what in the history of philosophy is called 'categorical imperative.'

Force cannot transmit a moral principle: moral ideas can be received only through the reason of the heart.

Our moral philosophy determines our values - what we care about and what we don't care about - and our values determine our decisions, actions, and beliefs. Therefore, moral philosophy applies to everything in our lives.

I know one thing you don't. I know the difference between Right and Wrong. They didn't teach you that at school.' Rose didn't answer; the woman was quite right: the two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was extinguished by stronger foods--Good and Evil.

How can you hope to recognize good and evil for what they truly are if you have no belief in a moral authority greater than yourself?

Why are we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.