1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
“Fashion is neither moral or immoral, but it is for rebuilding the morale.”
“Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.”
Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 7
“Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality.”
Testaments Betrayed (1995), p. 7
Context: Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the viewpoint of the novel’s wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.
“A moral system valid for all is basically immoral.”
Generally attributed to Nietzsche, this is a quotation from Curtis Cate's Friedrich Nietzsche: A Biography (2003) and is the author's interpretation of Nietzsche's Aphorism 221 (Beyond Good and Evil)
Misattributed
Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 22, August 30, 1941.
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Source: Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 1
Variant: There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
