Mark Twain Quotes

A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities, and the United States, in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened nations, would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.

For no phase of life, whether public or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns oneself alone or dealing with another, can be without its moral duty; on the discharge of such duties depends all that is morally right, and on their neglect all that is morally wrong in life.

All duties are matters of conscience, with this restriction that a superior obligation suspends the force of an inferior one.

All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.

I don't believe that we evolved moral psychology; it just doesn't seem plausible to me as a biological phenomenon.

There is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to me so unaccountable as that thing called conscience.

A society of atheists would immediately invent a religion.

Even the most sadistic and destructive man is human, as human as the saint.

My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.

The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments, consisting of two tables; one comprehending the duties which we owe immediately to God-the other, the duties we owe to our fellow men.

If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it; and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.

Real morality is possible when the sanctions for morality are also tangible and real. Therefore, atheism shifts the basis of morality from faith in god to obligations of social living. Moral conduct is not a passport to heaven; it is social necessity.

Religion finds the love of happiness and the principles of duty separated in us; and its mission, its masterpiece, is to reunite them.

Ethics may be defined as the obligations of morality.

The difference between a serial killer and a saint is environment. That's a very hard thing to accept because that raises a lot of questions

A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men?

There is a universal moral law, as distinct from a moral code, which consists of certain statements of fact about the nature of man, and by behaving in conformity with which, man may enjoy his true freedom.

Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty.

We have duties to others, and duties to ourselves, and we cannot shirk either.

It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do: good Christians content themselves with His will revealed in His Word.

Only Christianity and its teachings can explain the purpose and meaning of this world- and also gives the basis for right and wrong, good and evil, etc.

There is nothing more innately human than the tendency to transmute what has become customary into what has been divinely ordained.

The Bible is really not a religious book but a divine manual written by the manufacturer of humanity by which the product man is supposed to live. If we learn those principles and obey them, then we find that the process of failure to success becomes more inevitability than experiment.

Not only virtue, but also insight, not only sanctity but also wisdom, are the duties and tasks of mankind.

All religions are good 'in principle' - but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards.