John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes

I will tell you what to hate. Hate hypocrisy, hate cant, hate indolence, oppression, injustice; hate Pharisaism; hate them as Christ hated them with a deep, living, godlike hatred.

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living.

Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.

It is almost impossible to imagine that any one could be so insensible to the high morality of Mr. Mill's character as to suggest to him any course of conduct that was not entirely upright and consistent.

Sincerity is moral truth.

Shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. He did not seek to put his characters in a position where it was right to do wrong.

A book must have moral purpose to be any good. Why, I don't know.

Be sensible, that is, cease to be honest.

Actually, no one is born honest or corrupt.

I have watched constantly that in our work the highest moral and spiritual standards are upheld, whether my productions deal with fable or with stories of living action.

I wish I could be honest and true, but truth as I see it is not something abstract, a pious generality---It is justice at work, righteous, demanding, disciplined, sincere and unswerving; otherwise, it is not, it cannot be truth at all.

Integrity means always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences.

I never condemn wrongdoing in any area.

The last degree of honesty has always been, and is still considered incompatible with statesmanship. To hunger and thirst after righteousness has been naturally, as it were, supposed a disqualification for affairs.

Morality, taken as apart from religion, is but another name for decency of sin.

Nor let us part with justice, like a cheap and common thing, for a small and trifling price.

God judges what we tolerate as well as what we practice. Too often we put up with things we ought to put out.

It is a sin to be a mocker.

But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and, therefore, not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge.

Because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.

Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.

Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.

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.

I prefer to do right and get no thanks than to do wrong and receive no punishment.