Neale Donald Walsch Quotes

Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality.

Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.

As to ethics, unfortunately, we are still at sea. We never did have any popular base for what little ethics we knew, except the religious theories, and now that our faith is shaken in those theories we cannot account for ethics at all. It is no wonder we behave badly, we are literally ignorant of the laws of ethics, which is the simplest of sciences, the most necessary, the most continuously needed. The childish misconduct of our 'revolted youth' is quite equaled by that of older people, and neither young nor old seem to have any understanding of the reasons why conduct is 'good' or 'bad.

Ethics, as has been well said, are the finest fruits of humanity, but they are not its roots

The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.

It is always so much easier to be moral than it is to be spiritual.

The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.

The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.

Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

As a rule, it was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.

Strength and strength's will are the supreme ethic. All else are dreams from hospital beds, the sly, crawling goodness of sneaking souls.

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are 'done away' and the rest is a matter of flying.

Fine blunderers in ethics we are, so generally conveying to children the basic impression that pleasantness must be wrong, and right doing unpleasant!

There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.

I do not believe that a man should be restrained in his daily actions by being afraid of punishment after death or that he should do things only because in this way he will be rewarded after he dies. This does not make sense. The proper guidance during the life of a man should be the weight that he puts upon ethics and the amount of consideration that he has for others.

Morals - all correct moral laws - derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.

Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

Most people don't base their morality on religion in spite what they say. If you ask people, "If you didn't believe in God, would you go out and kill your neighbour?" Most people will say, "No".

Now the soul of man is divided into two parts, one of which has a rational principle in itself, and the other, not having a rational principle in itself, is able to obey such a principle. And we call a man in any way good because he has the virtues of these two parts.

History has taught us that freedom cannot long survive unless it is based on moral foundations. You can get the economics right, but in addition liberty must be cultivated as a moral quality.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions.

Over the last few years, I've been focusing on questions having to do with the self, and questions having to do with morality. I'm very interested in why we do good things, or bad things, and where moral judgments come from.

If you ask anyone, what is morality based on? These are the two factors that always come out: One is reciprocity, … a sense of fairness, and the other one is empathy and compassion.