60+ Inspiring Moral Quotes to Reflect on Ethics, Integrity, and Values
Morality is the guiding compass of human behavior, rooted in principles of right and wrong, fairness, and empathy. It shapes our decisions and interactions, fostering trust, respect, and harmony in communities. Morals are not just societal constructs but reflections of our shared humanity, inspiring us to act with integrity and compassion. By adhering to moral values, we contribute to a world where justice, kindness, and understanding prevail, creating a foundation for meaningful relationships and a better future.
Including: Ethics, and Integrity.
- “I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.”
- “The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.”
- “Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.”
- “If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values—that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.”
- “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.”
- “Morality is of the highest importance—but for us, not for God.”
- “I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.”
- “Force always attracts men of low morality.”
- “If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.”
- “Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”
- “Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.”
- “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”
- “To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.”
- “In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.”
- “Fear is the mother of morality.”
- “Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.”
- “There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.”
- “The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
- “Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
- “What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.”
- “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”
- “A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.”
- “Indigestion is charged by God with enforcing morality on the stomach.”
- “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.”
- “Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.”
- “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
- “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.”
- “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
- “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public.”
- “Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.”
- “It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.”
- “If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants.”
- “Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.”
- “Every judgement of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.”
- “Moral science is better occupied when treating of friendship than of justice.”
- “The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness.”
- “The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.”
- “A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives – of approving of some and disapproving of others.”
- “Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
- “In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”
- “Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.”
- “To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.”
- “We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.”
- “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
- “Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.”
- “About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
- “What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
- “No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.”
- “I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
- “Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‘real’ world.”
- “Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.”
- “I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.”
- “A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.”
- “The peasant must always be helped technically, economically, morally and culturally. The guerrilla fighter will be a sort of guiding angel who has fallen into the zone, helping the poor always and bothering the rich as little as possible in the first phases of the war.”
- “Politics have no relation to morals.”
- “For my part, I desire to see the time when education – and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry – shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.”
- “I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.”
- “Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.”
- “I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.”
- “Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.”
- “Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.”
- “Morality is contraband in war.”
- “Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.”