Philip Pullman Quotes

It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.

Being afraid you'll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

I'm sure there's a right way and there's a wrong way. The bottom line is you have to do what you think is right.

Choices of right or wrong are not presented to you in black and white. If they were, I'm sure most people would choose white.

The evil that we know is best.

If we say yes to something we believe is wrong now, what guarantee is there that the wrong will not be further exacerbated down the line?

I don't think any of us know how we would react until we were put in a situation where we have to do something bad or do something good. I think I'd like to believe I'd act like a decent human being, but I'm realistic to know I don't know.

It was an act of both conscience and cowardice.

Contemporary audiences are interested in watching characters navigate ethical challenges and moral dilemmas.

Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess. Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.

The world, the wise world, that never is wrong itself, judges always by events. And if he should use me ill, then I shall be blamed for trusting him: if well, O then I did right, to be sure!--But how would my censurers act in my case, before the event justifies or condemns the action, is the question.

I know the difference between right and wrong, and I can tell good from bad. But I also know that the more difficult decisions come when we have to choose between good and better. The toughest calls of all are those we have to make between bad and worse.

Would we be the heroes or the cowards of the piece? Would we follow orders or stick to our principles, if those two things ever conflicted? Would we be the brave ones who still found the capacity for love - and for laughter - even while we were terrified?

Conscience is a just but weak judge. Weakness leaves it powerless to execute its judgment.

There is no right or wrong behavior. The only meaningful choice is between fear and love.

As the mind of each man is conscious of good or evil, so does he conceive within his breast hope or fear, according to his actions.

Because it's possible to do, and you have the right to do it, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best, For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view! . . . . . . Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin; And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is-the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.

It is sometimes rational to do what is wrong, and sometimes irrational to do what is right

Conscience was the barmaid of the Victorian soul. Recognizing that human beings were fallible and that their failings, though regrettable, must be humored, conscience would permit, rather ungraciously perhaps, the indulgence of a number of carefully selected desires.

The issues of the choice between right and wrong has to be an ongoing concern for everybody, at every age. There is no magical point in a human life when anyone is or becomes immune to the second-by-second choice to do right instead of wrong.

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