“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.”

— Ernest Hemingway, book Death in the Afternoon

Source: Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 1

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Ernest Hemingway501

American author and journalist 1899–1961

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

Remalna's Children (Crown & Court 2.5, 2011)

“You emphasize morality. But the ultimate basis of morality is survival. What promotes survival is good; what induces mortifaction is bad.”

Jack Vance book The Last Castle

Source: The Last Castle (1966), Chapter 3, section 2

“It was a tool for me. I could express what I was feeling, whether it's good feelings or bad feelings. In that case it was bad feelings. But it was like all of a sudden, 'Who cares what Donald Trump or anyone else thinks of you?'”

Kim Novak (1933) American actress

Source: CBS Sunday Morning interview (2020)
Context: Answering the question "What did painting do for you after you came home from the Oscars?"

“One must know what is right and wrong and what is good and what is bad and what should be done and what should not be done. As well as manners, we must force our hearts to always be in good morals.”

Ananda Mahidol (1925–1946) eighth monarch of Siam from the Chakri dynasty as Rama VIII

Source: "Speech while conferring degree certificates to the graduating students of Chulalongkorn University" http://www.memohall.chula.ac.th/article/%E0%B8%81/ (13 April 1946)

“What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 22, August 30, 1941.

“I know what good morals are,
but you're supposed to disregard good morals when you're living in a crazy, bad world. If you're in hell, how can you live like an angel? You're surrounded by devils, trying to be an angel? That's like suicide.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Source: Resurrection, 1971-1996

““You aren’t doing much for morale, Sidewise.”
Sidewise shot back, “And what about my morale? It does me no damn good to ignore what’s blindingly obvious all around us.””

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 17 “A Long Shadow” section II (p. 539)

“The good news is that at the essence of who and what we are there is a deep and fundamental goodness. Not the goodness that we've been taught, not like morally good, as opposed to morally bad, but something deeper - a goodness which is inherent in what we are.”

Adyashanti (1962) Spiritual teacher

The Basic Teachings - Part 1: Principles of the Teaching (2009)

“Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

As quoted in "Boris Pasternak" in I.F. Stone's Weekly (3 November 1958), § "Words Which Apply to Us As Well As Russia"; later in The Best of I.F. Stone (2006), p. 43
Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Context: The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn't just a fiction, it's part of our physical body, and our souls exists in space and is inside us, like the teeth in the mouth. It can't forever be violated with impunity.

“Our morals differ in different counties, in different towns, in different streets, even in different Acts of Parliament. What is moral in London is immoral in Montacute; what is crime among the multitude is only vice among the few.”

Benjamin Disraeli book Tancred

Tancred, Chapter 7.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“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.”

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