Moral Duality Quotes

It is always man's ideas which drive his actions. This has, at times, resulted in great evil; but as we look around us, we cannot doubt that it has resulted in greater good.

The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by telling against ourselves.

Men are not altogether bad or altogether good.

I define a 'good person' as somebody who is fully conscious of their own limitations. They know their strengths, but they also know their 'shadow' - they know their weaknesses. In other words, they understand that there is no good without bad. Good and evil are really one, but we have broken them up in our consciousness. We polarize them.

We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us.

Most people use two totally different sets of criteria for judging themselves versus others. We tend to judge others according to their actions. It's very cut-and-dried. However, we judge ourselves by our intentions. Even if we do the wrong thing, if we believe our motives were good, we let ourselves off the hook. And we are often willing to do that over and over before requiring ourselves to change.

Goodness is, so to speak, itself; badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.

The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still.

You don't have people who are monsters and only do bad. There's good and bad for everybody. It's all a spectrum.

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

Saints need sinners.

We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

If a man owes me money, I never seem to forget. But if I do the owing, I somehow never remember.

Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.

The problem was, you couldn't have one without the other. There couldn't be a bad guy unless there was a good guy to create the standard. And there couldn't be a good guy until a bad guy showed just how far off the path he might stray.

When we watch courtroom dramas, we tend to identify with the kindhearted defense attorney, but give us the power, and we become like hanging judges.

I've been a sinner and a saint. If you've been a saint all your life, it's pretty easy to sleep at night. If you've been a sinner, you're just as comfortable in it.

It is usual to think of good and evil as two poles, two opposite directions, the antithesis of one another...We must begin by doing away with this convention.

Nobody is all good or bad.

There is good and evil in each of us, and you can easily be led to the dark side.

When I play 'Grand Theft Auto,' I'm such a nerdy little law abider because I've always had this active imagination in which I sympathize and empathize with things.

In my home, life was framed as an epic spiritual battle between good and evil.

Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source.

I think that, for whatever reason, we've gotten to a place where, particularly in Hollywood, things have to be very pat. Like 'I'm a good guy. I'm a bad guy.'

Badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. Evil is a parasite, not an original thing.