Michael Dyson Quotes

There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior.

Conscience is what? It is putting together a moral act and a moral ideal, and measuring the act by the ideal. It is putting this moral act which you do alongside the eternal laws of God, and seeing how it stands by those laws of God.

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.

I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that is immoral, even if it is technically legal.

All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.

Conscience signifies that knowledge which a man hath of his own thoughts and actions; and because, if a man judgeth fairly of his actions by comparing them with the law of God, his mind will approve or condemn him; this knowledge or conscience may be both an accuser and a judge.

Conscience, man's moral medicine chest.

I'm not saying I'm perfect. But I'm someone who analyses and reflects on what I do, whether it's in keeping with the ethics that I talk about in public. That's how I've been all my life.

Right and wrong as moral principles do not change. They are applicable and reliable determinants whether the situations with which we deal are simple or complicated. There is always a right and wrong to every question which requires our solution.

To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

We don't claim to have perfect morals, but at least we have a huge area of things that, while legal, are beneath us. We won't do them. Currently, there's a culture in Americathat says that anything that won't send you to prison is OK.

Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.

Real morality is possible when the sanctions for morality are also tangible and real.

Each decision - to kill, to sign a petition, to write a letter, to make a speech, to attack, to lie, to surrender - was made at some point in somebody's day.

People have no morals, I swear to God. The things that people do for ratings! It's unforgivable.

Morality is the thing upon which your friends smile, and immorality is the thing upon which they frown

What is immoral for an individual to do, is immoral for a government to do

The right for the right's sake is the motto which everyone should take for his own life. With that as a standard of value we can descend into our hearts, appraise ourselves, and determine in how far we already are moral beings, in how far not yet.

Moral standards cannot be changed by battle and cannot be changed by ballot.

I am a moralist. I worry.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. This isn’t a good idea. This isn’t right.” “There’s all kinds of right,” he murmured. “On the spectrum, we’re still in the safe zone.” ... “Definitely right. Usually right,” Patch continued. “Mostly right. Maybe right.

A good person is one who follows the Ten Commandments and the golden rule. There is plenty of precedent in history to guide us and we probably evolved to be sensitive to Bible-Golden Rule situations. But the dilemmas faced by a worker - a journalist, an architect, an auditor - or by a citizen (what position to take on stem cell research, whether to run for office, what is the proper balance between taxation and social nets) - are not questions that can be answered by traditional texts or precedents.

You can never ask others to do something you would not do. That is integrity.

Before thou reprehend another, take heed thou art not culpable in what thou goest about to reprehend. He that cleanses a blot with blotted fingers makes a greater blur.

We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.