Moral Caution Quotes & Sayings

To all parties present and participating in the life of the country, Aunt Alexandra was one of the last of her kind: she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral come along and she would uphold it; she was born in the objective case; she was an incurable gossip. When Aunt Alexandra went to school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning. She was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn. She never let a chance escape her to point out the shortcomings of other tribal groups to the greater glory of our own, a habit that amused Jem rather than annoyed him: Aunty better watch how she talks - scratch most folks in Maycomb and they're kin to us. — Harper Lee

Outsiders always look for a reason to explain why they are not inside. They never look in the mirror. Let's face it, the profession I'm in is a very simple and a very cruel one. There is no way that you can create a career for someone without talent and no way to stop a career of someone with talent. — Isaac Stern

We are a nation of 20 million bathrooms, with a humanist in every tub. — Mary McCarthy

A final caution to students: in making judgments on literature, always be honest. Do not pretend to like what you really do not like. Do not be afraid to admit a liking for what you do like. A genuine enthusiasm for the second-rate is much better than false enthusiasm or no enthusiasm at all. Be neither hasty nor timorous in making your judgments. When you have attentively read a poem and thoroughly considered it, decide what you think. Do not hedge, equivocate, or try to find out others' opinions before forming your own. But having formed an opinion and expressed it, do not allow it to petrify. Compare your opinion then with the opinions of others; allow yourself to change it when convinced of its error: in this way you learn. Honestly, courage, and humility are the necessary moral foundations for all genuine literary judgment. — Laurence Perrine

I realized that with everything I did from that point onward, I would have to ask myself this question: "How would I feel if what I'm doing right now is written up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or if it is on television? Would I still do it?" That is a very useful exercise for leaders to engage in, because we shouldn't do anything we might be embarrassed by or ashamed of. — John E. Mackey

We would be a much healthier culture if the government had never told us how to eat. — Joel Salatin

Yes, I am a Mexican, and I have a past and a culture. But what matters is the film itself, not where it was financed or cast. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

All general maxims in politics ought to be established with great caution; and that irregular and extraordinary appearances are frequently discovered in the moral, as well as in the physical world — David Hume

They were heedless of the fact that they'd gain more converts if they just stopped talking. — James Ellroy