#immoral

A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#existence #hitherto #immoral #knowledge #morality

Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality; what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution. ↗

— Judith Martin

#almost #contribution #days #did #discreet

Does a rake deserve to possess anything of worth, since he chases everything in skirts and then imagines he can successfully hide his shame by slandering [women in general]? ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#double-standards #gender #hypocrisy #immorality #men

Everything good in life is either immoral, illegal or fattening. ↗

— Nicole Richie

#illegal #immorality #lament #life #true

You can see the same immorality or amorality in the Christian view of guilt and punishment. There are only two texts, both of them extreme and mutually contradictory. The Old Testament injunction is the one to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (it occurs in a passage of perfectly demented detail about the exact rules governing mutual ox-goring; you should look it up in its context (Exodus 21). The second is from the Gospels and says that only those without sin should cast the first stone. The first is a moral basis for capital punishment and other barbarities; the second is so relativistic and "nonjudgmental" that it would not allow the prosecution of Charles Manson. Our few notions of justice have had to evolve despite these absurd codes of ultra vindictiveness and ultracompassion. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#christianity #compassion #guilt #immorality #justice

A person is born with desires of the eyes and ears, and a liking for beautiful sights and sounds. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to immorality and lack of restriction, and any ritual principles and propriety will be abandoned. ↗

— Xun Zi

#any #beautiful #born #desires #ears

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

#dislike #given #happen #immorality #like

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons. ↗

— Thomas Hardy

#moral #reasons #thing

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

#bad #feel #feel good #good #i

Every tax or rate, forcibly taken from an unwilling person, is immoral and oppressive. ↗