Moral Quotes

We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.

The trouble isn't so much that our scientific genius lags behind, but our moral genius lags behind. The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live.

The real problem is that through our scientific genius we've made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we've failed to make of it a brotherhood.

Now that the mistake of the past has been made, I think that the opportunity of the future is to really go out and to transform American society, and where else is there a better place than in the institution that should serve as the moral guardian of the community.

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.

One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

No nation can rise to its full moral maturity so long as it subjects a segment of its citizenry on the basis of race or color.

Racial injustice is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before our moral health can be realized.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time - the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.

I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

Communism is based on ethical relativism and accepts no stable moral absolutes. Right and wrong are relative to the most expedient methods for dealing with class war.

The beauty of non-violence is that is makes it possible for the individual to struggle to secure moral ends through moral means.

One of the great philosophical debates of the centuries has been over the whole question of ends and means. In a real sense, the end is pre-existent in the means; the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process. In the long run of history, immoral means cannot bring about moral ends.

This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

The moral philosophy and spiritual conceptions of men and nations should hold their own amid these formidable scientific evolutions...No material progress, even though it takes shapes we cannot now conceive, or however it may expand the faculties of man, can bring comfort to his soul.

Moral force is, unhappily, no substitute for armed force, but it is a very great reinforcement.

The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.