Honore de Balzac Quotes

Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.

Despite what they tell you, there are simply no moral absolutes in a complex world.

If you look in real life, it is very hard to describe people as good people, bad people, heroes or villains. People aren't bad people. They all have their justifications.

Circumstances dictate your set of values, your set of morals.

There's no such thing as morality.

We are coming out of a century that was taught that one way of looking at the world, that one form of behavior, is as valid as another. The idea of true evil has been blown away.

There's no right or wrong, success or failure.

One clings to principles for only as long as they are not put to the test. When that happens one throws them away as the peasant does his slippers.

I don't believe in good people and bad people.

There is no moral absolute, and this leads us to situational ethics, which unfortunately is being taught in public schools all over America. This means that right and wrong is dependent upon the circumstances.

There are some lies that, under the right circumstances, are the only truth

A moral principle is not a command to act or to forbear acting in a given way: it is a tool for analyzing a special situation, the right or wrong being determined by the situation in its entirety, not by the rule as such.

We aren't the good guys, Anita. We're the necessary guys. -Edward

There are no "standards of Right". Ethics is balderdash. Each Star must go on its own orbit. To hell with "moral principle"; there is no such thing.

Life's not black-and-white. Sometimes the ends justifies the means.

Bad is not an absolute, but a relative term. Ask the robber who used the cash he stole to feed his infant; the rapist who was sexually abused as a child; the kidnapper who truly believed he was saving a life. And just because you break the law doesn't mean you have intentionally crossed the line into evil. Sometimes the line creeps up on you, and before you know it, you're standing on the other side.

The difference between right and wrong is often not more than five metres.

There is no such thing as pure good or pure evil, least of all in people.

There must be sophistry in all this; but the condition of a slave confuses all principles of morality, and, in fact, renders the practice of them impossible.

The world has far too much morality.

So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.

Moral relativism has a reputation for being compassionate, caring and humane, but it is an extremely useful philosophy for tyrants.

Moral relativism says morality is relative, not absolute, I want to show moral relativism, in its popular form, is logically incoherent.

You can get away with anything as long as it works.