Phyllis McGinley Quotes

Modern morality is all about perception.

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.

A man is not good or bad for one action.

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.

The so-called new morality is too often the old immorality condoned.

One easily bears moral reproof, but never mockery.

What they need is a little immorality in their lives. Then they wouldn't be so busy looking for it in other people's.

The same president who has insisted that core moralism drives him has brought America to its lowest moral standing in history.

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

Morality covers our conduct, not what goes on inside our heads.

You're either a person with a conscience, or you're not. I think I've got quite a fine conscience.

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

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.

We are naturally moral beings, but our environments can enhance - or, sadly, degrade - this innate moral sense.

Morality is the weakness of the brain.

I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.

Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.

Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people.

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, 'I'm a bad guy.' They think they're the right guy.

Morals are an acquirement -- like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis -- no man is born with them.

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