Pat Conroy Quotes

If in order to kill the enemy you have to kill an innocent, don't take the shot. Don't create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

I killed one man to save 100,000.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one. You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

The attempt to remove evil from the world by killing a thousand evil - doers, only adds to the evil in the world.

It was better that a little blood should be shed that much blood should be saved. The blood that was shed was bad blood; the blood that was saved was good blood.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

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.

Sometimes the right thing gets done for the wrong reason and sometimes, unfortunately, the wrong thing gets done for the right reason.

One of the key issues will be personal honour vs. the good of the many, and unforeseen consequences.

One cannot prescribe to anyone whether he should follow an ethic of absolute ends or an ethic of responsibility.

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

Who wills the ends must not shrink from the means.

We were taught to kill the enemy. They were evil. We were doing something good.

War not only teaches what man can be, but it teaches also what he must not be.

Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so.

Let's just kill everyone and let God sort them out.

There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker

If you are picking the lesser of two evils, you are still picking Evil.

If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.

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

We have a lot of villains in the world, all right? And the Catholic doctrine says turn the other cheek, the Christian doctrine. But if you turn the other cheek, you could be annihilated. So when is it justifiable to defend yourself and take aggressive action in that regard, like dropping drones on people?

A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace.

Is it wrong to kill something that wants to kill you?

We have perfected our weapons but failed to perfect the men who use them.

Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight. But roaring Bill, who killed him, thought it right.