Moral Lesson Quotes

You know why I think we still execute people? Because, even if we don't want to say it out loud-for the really heinous crimes, we want to know that there's a really heinous punishment. Simple as that. We want to bring society closer together-huddle and circle our wagons-and that means getting rid of people we think are incapable of learning a moral lesson. I guess the question is: Who gets to identify those people? And what if, God forbid, they got it wrong? ~ Jodi Picoult

A person frequently writes in order to escape madness and crushing despondency by culling moral lesson and healing growth serum from personal experiences. Akin to riders on a storm, and a dog without a bone, we only come to understand our limits by enduring suffering. Only by deliberately confronting the essential facts of life does a person come to understand humanity. Without suffering the full brunt of love, sorrow, pain, illness, death, and accepting the relentless march of time a person never comes to know anything at all regarding the wonderful mystery of life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Elizabeth waited until he had left and then promptly burst into laughter. She couldn't help it, she had been soaked, threatened by a skunk, attacked by a dog and now given a moral lesson by a man that had threatened her with a Winchester earlier.
She couldn't remember ever having a better day. ~ Grace Willows

Nathan "N.R." Gaddis did not say ::

2109 fellow Goodreaders [can't be wrong] gave [King Lear] 1 star. Many call it boring. Some even say it is predictable and has no moral lesson. That these people have the right to vote and to procreate is frightening to me. ~ Nathan "N.R." Gaddis

We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. ~ Joan Didion

At Gabriel College there was a very holy object on the high altar of the Oratory, covered with a black velvet cloth... At the height of the invocation the Intercessor lifted the cloth to reveal in the dimness a glass dome inside which there was something too distant to see, until he pulled a string attached to a shutter above, letting a ray of sunlight through to strike the dome exactly. Then it became clear: a little thing like a weathervane, with four sails black on one side and white on the other, began to whirl around as the light struck it. It illustrated a moral lesson, the Intercessor explained, for the black of ignorance fled from the light, whereas the wisdom of white rushed to embrace it.

{Alluding to William Crookes's radiometer.} ~ Philip Pullman

I'm not the person who reading a ppl's biography in order to get a moral lesson. ~ Ryzal Ibrahim

If there is any message in the 'Wimpy Kid' books, it is that reading can be and should be fun. As an adult reader, when I see an obvious moral lesson to be taught, I run in the other direction ... Kids can sniff out an adult agenda from an early age. I'm writing for entertainment, not to impress literary judges. ~ Jeff Kinney

He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson ~ John Irving

And she speculated that the city would be cold, completely of itself, unconscious, that its every move would be transcendent, and that each of its hundred million flashing scenes would strike a moral lesson.
Such a city would extend vision, intensify pity, telescope emotion, and float the heart the way the sea is gently buoyant with great ships. To do this it would have to be a cold instrument. And, despite its beauty, it would have to be cruel. ~ Mark Helprin

When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief. ~ Horace

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child
the most important lesson for every time of life
is this: 'Never hurt anybody. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame. ~ Oscar Wilde

Fellow Englishman. Ladies and gentleman. You gather here today to see a live man become a dead one, and for my part you shall have satisfaction. But I would offer you a moral lesson to commemorate my passing; otherwise it might as well be bull baiting you witness here today. However I shall not deliver a warning that crime does not pay, for it pays very well; nor that a life of drink and debauchery leads inevitably to destruction, for I haven't led such a life. Here's what this little life of mine has taught me. There is only one reason to live, and there is only one reason to die, and that is love. If you have not known love, you have not lived. But if, when death comes to take your soul, you have loved someone dearly, then your soul is safe; for it lives in the bosom of your sweetheart, and death can make no claim upon it. That is all I know, and it is enough. Farewell. ~ Ben Tripp

Theologians will protest that the story of Abraham sacrificing Issac should not be taken as literal fact, and the appropriate response is two-fold. First, many, many people, even to this day, do take the whole of their scripture to be literal fact, and they have a great deal of political power over the rest of us, especially in the United States and in the Islamic world. Secondly, how should we take the story? As an alagory? Then an alagory for what? Surely nothing praiseworthy. As a moral lesson? Then what kind of lesson could be derived from this appalling story? ~ Richard Dawkins

[ ... ] art instills the fundamental moral lesson: That you aren't the center of the universe. That others weren't created for your benefit. That they are just as real as you, with equal claimes to dignity and understanding. ~ William Deresiewicz

This lunge at moral fastidiousness was something she'd noticed a lot in people around here. They were not good people. They were not kind. But they recycled their newspapers! ~ Lorrie Moore

Wartime always brings expansions of state power, together with erosions of moral and constitutional standards. ~ Joseph Sobran

The true lesson of the Vietnam War is: certainty of purpose and ruthlessness of execution win wars. ~ Ronald Reagan

In Shakespeare, tragedy was the flame struck from the clash of moral principles; here ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

We are born into this world with clenched fists, we leave it with fingers apart- preaching the lesson that you take nothing with you. ~ Ethel Percy Andrus

If I were asked to name the deadliest subversive force within capitalism
the single greatest source of its waning morality
I should without hesitation name advertising. How else should one identify a force that debases language, drains thought, and undoes dignity? If the barrage of advertising, unchanged in its tone and texture, were devoted to some other purpose
say the exaltation of the public sector
it would be recognized in a moment for the corrosive element that it is. But as the voice of the private sector it escapes this startled notice. I mention it only to point out that a deep source of moral decay for capitalism arises from its own doings, not from that of its governing institutions. ~ Robert L. Hellbroner

I do listen to myself sometimes and think, 'Is my moral compass so easily swayed by the characters I play, or is it me growing as a human being?' ~ Andy Serkis

What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

After Daskalos returned to his armchair and was getting ready to continue our discussion I asked him whether the affliction of that man was due to karmic debts.

" 'All illnesses are due to Karma,' Daskalos replied. 'It is either the result of your own debts or the debts of others you love.'

" 'I can understand paying for one's own Karma but what does it mean paying the Karma of someone you love?' I asked.

" 'What do you think Christ meant,' Daskalos said, 'when he urged us to bear one another's burdens?'

" 'Karma,' Daskalos explained, 'has to be paid off in one way or another. This is the universal law of balance. So when we love someone, we may assist him in paying part of his debt. But this,' he said, 'is possible only after that person has received his 'lesson' and therefore it would not be necessary to pay his debt in full. When most of the Karma has been paid off someone else can assume the remaining burden and relieve the subject from the pain. When we are willing to do that,' Daskalos continued, 'the Logos will assume nine-tenths of the remaining debt and we would actually assume only one-tenth. Thus the final debt that will have to be paid would be much less and the necessary pain would be considerably reduced. These are not arbitrary percentages,' Daskalos insisted, 'but part of the nature of things. ~ Kyriacos C. Markides

Amanda learned a valuable lesson. Everything happens for a reason and in the end, you will be happy. ~ Corrine Annette Zahra

Few legislators who passed these mental health laws realized that (Brock) Chisholm and his associates defined mental illness as a sense of loyalty to a particular nation, a sense of loyalty to a moral code, and strict adherence to concepts of right and wrong. Chisholm has been obsessed for years with the idea that instilling concepts of right and wrong, love of country and morality in children by their parents is the paramount evil. ~ John A. Stormer

There was corruption at every turn, and those who stood for honesty and integrity were more and more vulnerable, more and more isolated amongst the hordes of people who simply had no moral sense. And ~ Alexander McCall Smith

If there is a word that should be retired from use in the service of women's expression, health, well-being, and equality, it is appropriate - a sloppy, mushy word that purports to convey some important moral essence but in reality is just a policing term used to regulate our language, appearance and demands. It's a control word.

We are done with control. ~ Soraya Chemaly

Neuroscience is fast developing the technical and conceptual wherewithal to reveal in fine, bare detail the neurobiological substrates of the mind. Perhaps it will despoil a sacred myth - the myth of selfhood and souls. And, if so, we may be wandering innocently into the opening phase of a dangerous game. Our ethics and systems of justice, our entire moral order, are founded on the notion of society as a collective of individual selves - autonomous, introspective, accountable agents. If this self-reflective, moral agent is revealed to be illusory, then what? ~ Paul Broks

Surely if we have learned anything from the history of morals it is that the thing to do with a moral quandary is not to hide it. ~ H. L. A. Hart

Because spite could be a slow poison to the heart. If there was a lesson to be learned from Hattie, it was that forgiveness was a blessing. It would be a hard, stubborn thing to harbor ill feelings forever, even toward those who deserved it... ~ Jessica Lawson

I prize the purity of his character as highly as I do that of hers. As a moral being, whatever it is morally wrong for her to do,it is morally wrong for him to do. The fallacious doctrine of male and female virtues has well nigh ruined all that is morally great and lovely in his character: he has been quite as deep a sufferer by it as woman, though mostly in different respects and by other processes. ~ Angelina Grimke

Dying is really inconceivable in the way it comes about, even though it is easily predictable by the very nature of our existence. However, it is as though man does not believe in death. Even though he witnesses it, he conceives and recognizes it only at a safe distance to be able to ignore its threat of finality at his own peril and the peril of those he loves. It appears as though the "world of dying" around us is not sufficiently close to become emotionally acceptable (that's why perhaps we live as though we will exist forever), and even the disappearance of our loved ones does not serve as a lesson of any sort. ~ Stanka Gjurić

The health of a community is an almost unfailing index of its morals. ~ James Martineau

At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabric of culture has come to seem of little account, mere fantasy or ritual, or downright falsification. Conversely, much that culture traditionally condemned and sought to exclude is accorded a considerable moral authority by reason of the authenticity claimed for it, for example, disorder, violence, unreason. ~ Lionel Trilling

Religious institutions perpetuate a moral master-servant relationship. They create an arena which attracts prideful human power-seekers with all of their nearsighted prejudices! ~ Frank Herbert

By following its own legal traditions, the arc of the Western moral universe never bends towards Indigenous justice. At best, it ignores it. At worst, it annihilates it. ~ Nick Estes

He was a violent, unjust man. Why the plague germs spared him I can never understand. It would seem, in spite of our old metaphysical notions about absolute justice, that there is no justice in the universe. Why did he live? - an iniquitous, moral monster, a blot on the face of nature, a cruel, relentless, bestial cheat as well. All ~ Jack London

The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. ~ Noah Webster

The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by leading their army to victory. So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

If we never experienced the the valuable lessons from failure, then we would never truly appreciate the pure joy of our success. ~ Lindsey Rietzsch

There's another kind of poverty that only rich men know, a moral malnutrition that starves their very souls. ~ Glenn Frey

The two [Greco-Roman and Latin] worlds also had enough unifying elements, however, to be considered a single continent. First of all, both the East and the West were the heirs to the Bible and to the ancient Church, which in both worlds refer beyond themselves to an origin that lies outside today's Europe, namely in Palestine. Secondly, both shared the idea of the Roman Empire and of the essential nature of the Church, and therefore of law and legal instruments. The last factor I would mention is monasticism, which throughout the great upheavals of history continued to be the indispensable bearer not only of cultural continuity but above all of fundamental religious and moral values, of the ultimate guidance of humankind. As a pre-political and supra-political force, monasticism was also the bringer of ever-welcome and necessary rebirths of culture and civilization. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Always see the good in everyone...learn to see through God's eyes no matter what...remember, the tables may turn tomorrow. You just never know! ~ Kemi Sogunle

Cleanliness, whether moral or of another kind, had its own peculiar meaning for these people. That they were water-shy was obvious on looking at them and, unfortunately, very often also when not looking at them at all. The odor of those people in caftans often used to make me feel ill. Beyond that there were the unkempt clothes and the ignoble exterior. ~ Adolf Hitler

You ought to know how to rise above the trivialities of life, in which most people are found drowning themselves. ~ D.T. Suzuki

Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the 'Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?' But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did - if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather - surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house. ~ C.S. Lewis

Lesson for young men: if you want your eventual wife to be excited about sucking your dick for forty years, don't create a generation of women who think enthusiasm about sex is a bad thing. ~ Anna Kendrick

I think that most people go to bookshops and have no idea what they want to buy. Somehow the books sit there, almost magically willing people to pick them up. The right person for the right book. Its as though they know whose life they need to be a part of, how they can make a difference, how they can teach a lesson, put a smile on a face at just the right time. ~ Cecelia Ahern

So, the moral of that story, other than never underestimate an independent bookseller, was that the Continental Army and its commander in chief had a soft spot for Chief Artillery Officer Henry Knox. ~ Sarah Vowell

Love is the law of God. You live that you may learn to love. You love
that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of Man.You are
the tree of Life. Beware of fractionating yourselves. Set not a fruit against a fruit, a leaf against a leaf, a bough against a bough; nor
set the stem against the roots; nor set the tree against the mother-
soil. That is precisely what you do when you love one part more than
the rest, or to the exclusion of the rest. No love is possible except
by the love of self. No self is real save the All-embracing Self.
Therefore is God all Love, because he loves himself. So long as you
are pained by Love, you have not found your real self, nor have you
found the golden key of Love. Because you love an ephemeral self, your
love is ephemeral. ~ Mikhail Naimy

Even though some individual scholars try to tell us there is no direct connection between images of violence and the violence confronting us in our lives, the commonsense truth remains- we are affected by the images we consume and by the states of mind we are in when watching them. If consumers want to be entertained, and the images shown us as entertaining are images of violent dehumanization, it makes sense that these acts become more acceptable in our daily lives and that we become less likely to respond to them with moral outrage or concern. Were we all seeing more images of loving human interaction, it would undoubtedly have a positive impact on our lives. ~ Bell Hooks

To read these books, in this way, as an exercise in self-knowledge, carries certain risks. Risks that are both personal and political. Risks that every student of Political Philosophy has known. These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us, and unsettles us, by confronting us with what we already know. There is an irony: the difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know. It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings, and making it strange. [...] Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing.

But, and here is the risk, once the familiar turns strange, it is never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'. What makes this enterprise difficult, but also revetting, is that Moral and Political Philosophy is a story, and you don't know where the story would lead, but you do know that the story is about You. ~ Michael J. Sandel

All the most reasonable teachings of human wisdom concerning justice are summed up in that famous adage: Do unto others that which you would that others should do unto you; Do not unto others that which you would not that others should do unto you. But this rule of moral practice is unscientific: what have I a right to wish that others should do or not do to me? It is of no use to tell me that my duty is equal to my right, unless I am told at the same time what my right is. ~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

that great condenser of moral chaos, The City. ~ Robert Hughes

The ultimate lesson games give is not about gratification and reward, nor about media and technology, nor about art and design. It is a lesson about modesty, attention, and care. Play cultivates humility, for it requires us to treat things as they are rather than as we wish them to be. If we let it, play can be the secret to contentment. Not because it provides happiness or pleasure - although it certainly can - but because it helps us pursue a greater respect for the things, people, and situations around us. ~ Ian Bogost

... we live in a purposeful world with a linear movement to a grand climax. Thousands of sub-plots unfold enroute to the great finale. Behind your life is an unseen and up fathomed blueprint where every experience is purposeful. Within this divine plan we are not robots, but responsible moral agents. We make choices and we are responsible for these choices. But God, in a way that you and I will never fathom, integrates into his plan our choices long before they are ever made. ~ Jim Andrews

The big moment came when it was decided to paint ... Just To Paint. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation, from Value- political, aesthetic, moral. ~ Harold Rosenberg