Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes

It's my opinion that every one I know has morals, though I wouldn't like to ask. I know I have. But I'd rather teach them than practice them any day. "Give them to others"-that's my motto.

Moral standards cannot be changed by battle and cannot be changed by ballot.

The Moral Sense teaches us what is right, and how to avoid it-when unpopular.

People need a moral code, to help them make decisions. All this bio-yogurt virtue and financial self-righteousness are just filling the gap in the market. But the problem is that it's all backwards. It's not that you do the right thing and hope it pays off; the morally right thing is by definition the thing that gives the biggest payoff.

If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong.

Ethics are pre-determined and a matter of discovery, not a evolved concept.

I do my research, and if I'm supporting something, then it's because it aligns with me morally and ethically.

The vices and the virtues are written in a language the world cannot construe; it reads them in a vile translation, and the translators are Failure and Success.

The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.

Moralizing and morals are two entirely different things and are always found in entirely different people

The so-called new morality is too often the old immorality condoned.

Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality.

That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.

All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.

My moral standing is lying down.

What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk.

Morality binds and blinds.

We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.

Don't swallow your moral code in tablet form.

You can't slice up morals.

The very essence of our civilization is that we give a paramount place to morality in all our affairs, public or private.

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.

Moralism is always the cheap substitute for mysticism.

Morality is a code of black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit.

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