Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

There are two methods of human activity - and according to which one of these two kinds of activity people mainly follow, are there two kinds of people: One use their reason to learn what is good and what is bad and they act according to this knowledge; the other act as they want to and then they use their reason to prove that that which they did was good and that which they didn't do was bad.

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

Do not make Mistakes about Character. That is the worst and yet easiest error. Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods. In dealing with men, more than with other things, it is necessary to look within. To know men is different from knowing things. It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.

You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?" "It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize." "Must be a human thing." "Exactly.

Why does man have reason if he can only be influenced by violence?

All human beings search for either reasons to be good, or excuses to be bad.

It is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.

Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than we do our rights.

Changing ideas is a strain not to be lightly incurred, particularly when these ideas are intimately related to one’s self-esteem ... men have elaborated an explanation for their situation in life.... Their rationales are endowed with moral qualities

People don't think of themselves as evil.

Human nature is a scoundrel's favorite explanation.

Research suggests that people are typically unaware of the reasons why they are doing what they are doing, but when asked for a reason, they readily supply one.

When, in the present world, men behave well, that is no doubt sometimes because they are creatures of habit as well as, sometimes, because they are reasonable.

I'm trying to understand how do we tell lies to ourselves to justify what we've done and what are the consequences of those lies? But actually maybe I also recognize that in turning empathy into a practice for many years, by turning, by forcing myself to separate at some level the humanity of a human being from his or her actions and recognizing that sometimes, even the moral aspects of a human being can contribute to immoral behavior.

I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.

Morality is the Science of harmonious relations between intelligent beings.

Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.

Over the last few years, I've been focusing on questions having to do with the self, and questions having to do with morality. I'm very interested in why we do good things, or bad things, and where moral judgments come from.

I think it was a big revelation to me earlier in my life that people who appear to be evil are actually not. In other words, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, "Yuck, yuck, yuck, I'm gonna be evil." I think even like Saddam Hussein or Hitler would wake up and say, "I think it's going to be a good day. I'm gonna do some really important work." And given their definition of good, they went out and did horrible things.

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

I'm very interested in why we do good things, or bad things, and where moral judgments come from.

I'm not sorry, it's human nature.

Every wicked man is in ignorance as to what he ought to do, and from what to abstain, and it is because of error such as this that men become unjust and, in a word, wicked.