Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-20] of 249 Morals quotesMorals QuotesMorals Next 20 quotes Society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.~ John Adams Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.~ John Adams Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.~ John Adams Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. ~ John Adams We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.~ John Adams Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have... a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.~ John Adams The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected, in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.~ John Quincy Adams A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.~ Samuel Adams Vices are their own punishment.~ Aesop The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack… These actions apparently arise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals.~ American Library Association For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends.~ Aristotle It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done.~ Aristotle A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious.~ Aristotle The spectacle of a judge pouring over the picture of some nude, trying to ascertain the extent to which she arouses prurient interests, and then attempting to write an opinion which explains the difference between that nude and some other nude has elements of low comedy.~ Thurman Arnold Give me chastity and self-restraint, but do not give it yet.~ Saint Augustine Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.~ Mikhail A. Bakunin Cocaine habit forming? Of course not. I ought to know, I've been using it for years.~ Tallulah Bankhead I'm a foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, "I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.~ Tallulah Bankhead What I'd like to see police do is deal with important issues and not these sorts of victimless crimes when society is riddled with problems.~ Alderman Rodney Barket When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.~ Frederic Bastiat Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print