“When a man declares: "There are no blacks and whites [in morality]" he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!"”
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
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Ayn Rand322
Russian-American novelist and philosopher 1905–1982Related quotes
Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments
Variant: When Will says 'enterprising', he means 'morally deficient.'"
"No, I mean enterprising," said Will. "When I mean morally deficient, I say, 'Now, that's something I would have done.
Source: The Mortal Instruments
William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman
"Likeness to God", an address in Providence, Rhode Island (1828)
Context: I begin with observing, what all indeed will understand, that the likeness to God, of which I propose to speak, belongs to man's higher or spiritual nature. It has its foundation in the original and essential capacities of the mind. In proportion as these are unfolded by right and vigorous exertion, it is extended and brightened. In proportion as these lie dormant, it is obscured. In proportion as they are perverted and overpowered by the appetites and passions, it is blotted out. In truth, moral evil, if unresisted and habitual, may so blight and lay waste these capacities, that the image of God in man may seem to be wholly destroyed.
Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer
"Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke" (1958), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1955), p. 104.
Sister Souljah (1964) American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer
"The Hate That Hate Produced" (1992)
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer
Siddhartha (1922)
Context: Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real.
Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 2.
Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams
Qur'an, 83:14
Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.73, p. 332
Religious Wisdom
Albert Camus book The Rebel
L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable — il n'a pas commencé l'histoire — ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.
Part 5: Thought at the Meridian (Section: Moderation and Excess)
The Rebel (1951)