George Saunders Quotes

We did what our people do all the time, we told ourselves something we did was right and we found a way to justify it, even though we knew it was wrong.

I think ethical ambivalence is a kind of innoculation, a way of excusing yourself in advance for something you actually want to do. No offense.

All wrong doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the best thing to do.

I find that people... very few people think that what they're doing is bad, and usually the people who think what they're doing is bad it has more to do with guilt.

When one does another person an injustice, in some mysterious way it does one good to discover (or to persuade oneself) that the injured party has also behaved badly or unfairly in some little matter or other; it is always a relief to the conscience if one can apportion some measure of guilt to the person one has betrayed.

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.

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

Every man's conscience is vile and depraved / You cannot depend on it to be your guide when it’s you who must keep it satisfied.

I'm trying to understand how do we tell lies to ourselves to justify what we've done and what are the consequences of those lies? But actually maybe I also recognize that in turning empathy into a practice for many years, by turning, by forcing myself to separate at some level the humanity of a human being from his or her actions and recognizing that sometimes, even the moral aspects of a human being can contribute to immoral behavior.

The truth is far from you, so you know you got to lie. Then you're all the time defending what you can never justify.

If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.

You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?" "It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize." "Must be a human thing." "Exactly.

Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life

But how,” said Charles, who was close to tears, “how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?’ Henry lit a cigarette. “I prefer to think of it,” he had said, “as redistribution of matter.

Revolting means for good ends make the ends of themselves revolting.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

Anyone who claims to have an entirely clear conscience is almost certainly a bore.

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.

Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.

People who don't believe in God may have their own way of justifying some bad act they have committed.

People go down bad paths and they make bad decisions, but it's always justified in their head.

It's easy to get into the grey zone [of ethics].

Everybody is grappling with their own moral compass, and that needle, like any needle, can't just stick. It's always floating a little bit, and depending on where you're standing, it's hard to read.

I don't know how to play evil.