I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but they're not blueprints for action, ever. - Ursula K Le Guin I know it's a film and all of that, and it's a Hollywood film, but it kind of feels like this sometimes, when you're in pain and it hurts, and you're desperate. Or you are about to cross some moral line and it's so seductive and you just do... and all that. - Patrick Marber

It is vital that we avoid any hint of moral superiority in our dealings with one another in the environmental movement; if it developed into factionalism it would destroy us, as factionalism has destroyed so many other progressive movements in America. - Edward Abbey Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive. - Mary Douglas If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the nineteenth province of Iraq. Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan. Yet nothing seems to disturb the contented air of moral superiority of those that intone the "peace movement". - Christopher Hitchens When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke. - Barbara Kingsolver ...I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narc...

While the restraining force of a higher authority was denounced in school, and the moral basis for decrying crime as immoral was discarded, moral relativism also demolished the ethical foundations of the very laws that criminals were breaking. If there is no Creator that imparts rights, an individual has no rights at birth. The only rights a person may have are determined by majority opinion. - Daniel Greenup For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion--that great engine of ignorance and bigotry--a nearly uncontested claim to being the only universal framework for moral wisdom. As a result, the most powerful societies on early spend their time debating issues like gay marriage when they should be focused on problems like nuclear proliferation, genocide, energy security, climate change, poverty, and failing schools. - Sam Harris Most moral relativists believe that tolerance of cultural diversity is better, in some important sense, than outrigh...

The moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home: to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own government, his own culture. The more freedom the writer possesses, the greater the moral obligation to play the role of critic. - Edward Abbey ...Let me say that I do think decency and civilization would insist that the writer take sides with the powerless. Clearly, there's no moral obligation to write in any particular way. But there is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless. I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects. - Chinua Achebe There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless. - Chinua Achebe Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue mea...

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 Nothing could be more absurd than moral lessons at such a moment! Oh, self-satisfied people: with what proud self-satisfaction such babblers are ready to utter their pronouncements! If they only knew to what degree I myself understand all the loathsomeness of my present condition, they wouldn't have the heart to teach me. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson - John Irving A moral lesson is better expressed in short sayings than in long discourse. - Johan...

a public persona that might be different from what we truly feel inside... everyone wonders if they are good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, no matter how old they are. It is an archetypical moral dilemma - Do you act like yourself and risk becoming an outcast? - Jodi Picoult There are no shortcuts to moral insight. Nature is not intrinsically anything that can offer comfort or solace in human terms -- if only because our species is such an insignificant latecomer in a world not constructed for us. So much the better. The answers to moral dilemmas are not lying out there, waiting to be discovered. They reside, like the kingdom of God, within us -- the most difficult and inaccessible spot for any discovery or consensus. - Stephen Jay Gould Here is my final point...About drugs, about alcohol, about pornography...What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, or take into my body as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet? And for those who are having a l...

We have here the fundamental problem of ethics, the crux of the theory of moral conduct. What is justice? -shall we seek righteousness, or shall we seek power? -is it better to be good, or to be strong? - Will Durant The great rule of moral conduct is next to God, respect time. - Johann Kaspar Lavater

a guardian ad litem... GAL is appointed by a court to be a child's advocate during legal proceedings that involve a minor. You don't have to be a lawyer to be trained as a GAL, but you have to have a moral compass and a heart. Which, actually probably renders most lawyers unqualified for the job. - Jodi Picoult What would I do without the moral compass of a teenage werewolf. - Ilona Andrews The more cashless our society becomes, the more our moral compass slips. - Dan Ariely So I'm just waiting until one party or the other actually gets a moral compass and a backbone. - John Perry Barlow A tyrant has uncommon moral compass. - Toba Beta Human's moral compass doesn't work yet in worlds where the instinct navigates life. - Toba Beta I think if you look at people, whether in business or government, who haven't had any moral compass, who've just changed to say whatever they thought the popular thing was, in the end they're losers. - Michael Bloomberg ...

I'm not good enough for you. But no one is. And most men, good or bad, have limits to what they would do, even for someone they love. I have none. No God, no moral code, no faith in anything. Except you. You're my religion. I would do anything you asked. I would fight, steal, kill for you. -Kev to Win - Lisa Kleypas Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities. - Gaston Bachelard Not even to herself dare she blame Helen. She could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was everything or nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse than stealing, and group most sins in an order all must approve, but it cannot group Helen. The surer ...

Once I had a better beat, I needed to have an even better one. And somewhere in that climbing, I lost sight of, sort of, my moral and ethical underpinnings. - Jayson Blair My Dad is my hero. He's 85 now and he is in great health. He is handsome and strong. He has an incredible moral and ethical backbone. I couldn't have been luckier with my parents. - Harry Connick Jr I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist. - Charles Stross Some nasty bitch of a woman from the coven of moral and ethical standards tried to fry Rache" the pixy said apparently proud of it. "I pixed the Tink-blasted dildo, and Rache's black-arts boyfriend blew her r...

There is nothing quite like the moral absolutism of the young. -Hodge - Cassandra Clare According to the moral absolutism that characterizes McCandless's beliefs, a challenge in which a successful outcome is assured isn't a challenge at all. - Jon Krakauer