Harold Kushner Quotes

If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

I do what I think is right.

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice.

doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right

Because it's possible to do, and you have the right to do it, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do, or the fitting thing, it still wasn't the right thing.

The fear of doing right is the grand treason in times of danger.

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

You must always do what you feel is right.

I'm just doing what my conscience asks me to do.

You just have to do what you know is right.

You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.

I don't think any of us know how we would react until we were put in a situation where we have to do something bad or do something good. I think I'd like to believe I'd act like a decent human being, but I'm realistic to know I don't know.

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.

It's easy to get into the grey zone [of ethics].

Integrity in the Moment of Choice: Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.

Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But Conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.

It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.

Conscience is a just but weak judge. Weakness leaves it powerless to execute its judgment.

Every act has both good and evil results. The best we can do is lean to the light.

It's essential that we do what's right - not necessarily what appears to be immediately popular.

Necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praiseworthy

The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.

There are worse things than a lie... I have found... that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.