Anatole France Quotes

The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.

Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural.

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.

I do not believe in the concept of good and evil in my personal life, in the real world. I just don't believe it. I never try to judge.

I have an interest in understanding evil. Who is the bad guy - the vampire who kills people and sucks their blood, or the survivalists who kill people to save their own lives? Is evil merely a creation of people? Or is there an evil nature? Or is it in the eye of the beholder? I really like these questions.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good... Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

Willing or preferring is the same with respect to good and evil, that judging is with respect to truth or falsehood.

The foundations of morality are like all other foundations: If you dig too much about them, the superstructure will come tumbling down.

I've learned a lot about good and evil. They are not always what they appear to be.

Modern morality is all about perception.

Without ethics, man has no future. This is to say, mankind without them cannot be itself. Ethics determine choices and actions and suggest difficult priorities.

Morality is the weakness of the brain.

I tend to think that good and evil exist and that the quantity in each of us is unchangeable. The moral character of people is set, fixed until death.

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.

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

The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil.

As for morality, well that's all tied up with the question of consciousness.

I suspect that here theists and atheists would agree: Human beings have within them the ability to choose evil or good. We wake up each day facing the age-old struggle of good and evil. In some situations, mental illness clouds our judgment.

I think that unless you can take judgments of right and wrong like an automaton, you must have emotions because that is our only way of moral guidance.

I try not to do anything that's immoral.

Some things must be good in themselves, else there could be no measure whereby to lay out good and evil.