John Galsworthy Quotes

The confusing of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

It is fair to judge peoples by the rights they will sacrifice most for.

Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.

Being decent is the only thing that matters in a terrible world like this.

Remember that what's right isn't always popular, and what's popular isn't always right.

We have been fortunate enough to live at a time when virtue, though it does not triumph, is nonetheless not always tormented by attack dogs. Beaten down, sickly, virtue has now been allowed to enter in all its tatters and sit in the corner, as long as it doesn't raise its voice.

As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality.

There is too much animal courage in society and not sufficient moral courage.

Virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination.

Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

There will be no true freedom without virtue, no true science without religion, no true industry without the fear of God and love to your fellow citizens.

A corrupt practice may be abolished, but a soiled imagination is not easily cleansed.

If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude and all the other qualities which enoble the character of a nation, and fulfill the ends of Government be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre, which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be set, which can not but have the most favorable influence on the rights of Mankind.

It is horrible! It is not the suffering and the death of the animals that is horrible, but the fact that the man without any need for so doing crushes his lofty feeling of sympathy and mercy for living creatures and does violence to himself that he may be cruel. The first element of moral life is abstinence.

Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God.

Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.

To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.

Fundamentally, the force that rules the world is conduct, whether it be moral or immoral. If it is moral, at least there may be hope for the world. If immoral, there is not only no hope, but no prospect of anything but destruction of all that has been accomplished during the last 5,000 years.

Our strength lies in spiritual concepts. It lies in public sensitivities to evil. Our greatest danger is not from invading armies. Our dangers are that we may commit suicide from within by complaisance with evil, or by public tolerance of scandalous behavior.

The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.

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

I would say that today, dishonesty is the rule, and honesty the exception. It could be, statistically, that more people are honest than dishonest, but the few that really control things are not honest, and that tips the balance.

It is better to suffer injustice than to do it.

Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.