Freya Stark Quotes

Why are we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.

You can't slice up morals.

If some incarnation of evil as unambiguous as Hitler appeared again, I would have no moral qualms about killing the enemy. But in the modern world of moral murkiness, I prefer to keep my hands as clean of enemy blood as possible.

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.

Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.

I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right now, and we're making a lot of progress on understanding how we actually work, what our moral nature is.

I know one thing you don't. I know the difference between Right and Wrong. They didn't teach you that at school.' Rose didn't answer; the woman was quite right: the two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was extinguished by stronger foods--Good and Evil.

If one must do a wrong, it's best to do it pursuing power-otherwise, let's have virtue.

I can only say that, while my own opinions as to ethics do not satisfy me, other people's satisfy me still less.

Tolerance obviously does not disturb the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil.

Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.

That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.

Morality is truth in full bloom.

Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong.

We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law.

Abstractions about right and wrong, whether they are as old as Thou Shalt Not Kill or as modern as Do Your Own Thing, often serve only to confuse and weaken genuine moral decision.

It is good insofar as it is not evil.

No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.

There being no absolute and universal standard of right, terrorism must be held to be wrong in every case.

Morality is a code of black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit.

If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong.

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

I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct.

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It's really no more inflammatory than that.