C. S. Lewis Quotes

We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you're talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product.

Whenever you try to break God's moral law, you end up breaking yourself and hurting others - all while proving His law in the process.

All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature.

Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.

Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. and yet... and yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some... some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.

Justice is the soul of the universe.

We may avoid the laws of man, but there are greater laws that can't be broken.

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

Nor does the idea of a moral order asserting itself against attack or want of conformity answer in full to our feelings regarding the tragic character.

A conscience without God is like a court without a judge.

There is a much more exact correspondence between the natural and moral world than we are apt to take notice of.

The fundamental basis of ethics must be chosen in some non-scientific way.

Evil, by definition, is that which endangers the good, and the good is that which we perceive as a value.

A slur upon the moral government of the world

It is often said by religious people that without its framework, there is no sense of right or wrong. My view is that religion comes after ethics.

All the heavenly Bodies, the Stars and Planets, are regulated with the utmost Wisdom! And can we suppose less Care to be taken in the Order of the moral than in the natural System?

We choose to believe in Ma'at. We create order out of chaos, beauty out of ugly randomness. That's what Egypt is all about.

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

In the past, the respect people had for religion meant that ethical practice was maintained through a majority following one religion or another. But this is no longer the case. We must therefore find some other way of establishing basic ethical principles.

Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo.

There is something in this universe that justifies the biblical writer in saying, "You shall reap what you sow." This is a law-abiding universe. This is a moral universe. It hinges on moral foundations. If we are to make of this a better world, we've got to go back and rediscover that precious value that we've left behind.

...Perses, hear me out on justice, and take what I have to say to heart; cease thinking of violence. For the son of Kronos, Zeus, has ordained this law to men: that fishes and wild beasts and winged birds should devour one another, since there is no justice in them; but to mankind he gave justice which proves for the best.

Do you know what morals are? Morals are an obedience to rules that people laid down to help you live among them.

The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved.