Quotes & Sayings About Moral High Ground

Things had changed between us in a profound way, something I think we both knew. All our fighting and nitpicking seemed so silly now. So did my endless agonizing about whether or not I should be with him. Once a man disposes of a body for you, the moral high ground has been lost. — Joanna Wylde

An e-mail from a reader says that liberals like to take the moral high ground, even though their own moral relativism means that there is no moral high ground. — Thomas Sowell

You know that things are not going well when you lose the moral high ground to a TMZ reporter, — John Oliver

Hypocrisy is not a way of getting back to the moral high ground. Pretending you're moral, saying your moral is not the same as acting morally. — Alan Dershowitz

Invoking the moral high ground somehow makes you lose it. Using a secret as a weapon makes you almost as bad as the transgressor. — David Levithan

We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground. From this high ground we can shoot down at our enemies and inflict heavy fatalities. — Salman Rushdie

It is very hard to talk to a person who believes that he or she has the moral high ground. You have to prevent that the Politically Correct individual views you as somebody who doesn't HAVE an idea on morality. Therefore, the first step to successfully debate the left is to establish an alternative moral position and explain to the opponent that this moral position is at least equally legitimate as his or her moral position. You can think of this as a preparatory step that needs to be taken before the real debate can actually begin. — Paul Nielsen

I was highly aware, in writing [the book]ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance. — Emma Donoghue

Like everyone else, evangelicals have a right to present arguments on all the issues, but the moment we present them as part of some "Christian" platform we abandon our moral high ground. — Philip Yancey

'The Truth' is not meant to preach or point any fingers. It's meant to show that perhaps we should all avoid taking the moral high ground unless we have thought about things a bit more. — Michael Palin

By being human, I was actually being inhumane. My hesitation to embrace my new abilities was causing needless suffering. Once you cross that moral threshold - once you decide to kill a man who hasn't threatened or wronged you - better to do it quickly, or whatever moral high ground you're standing on gets washed away by their blood. — Seth Grahame-Smith

damn lonely on the moral high ground. — A.W. Exley

You can take the high moral ground intellectually, but if it ever happens to you personally, I don't know that I could honestly say that I wouldn't want to kill someone who took someone away from me. So, it's a rich, fertile ground for great characters and great storytelling. That was the impetus. — Richard LaGravenese

The first step in gaining the upper hand is always to seize the moral high ground, and to be able to do this with no more than a single word is nothing short of genius. I — Alan Bradley

If we condone torture, we yield the moral high ground to our enemies and encourage anyone who hates us to stoop to using that subhuman level against us. We reap whatever we sow. — Rick Warren

And the moral high ground is a lovely place," Marwick said, as if he were agreeing. "It won't stop a missile, though. — James S.A. Corey

There are so many ways of falling off the high moral ground you've carefully built up for yourself. Moral ground is like that - slippery at the edges. — Alexander McCall Smith

History reveals there is no moral high ground; there is only perspective. We often exhibit the same behaviors for which we condemn others. — Steve Maraboli

Unless they're utterly heartless, people put a certain value on human life. It keeps us from killing each other off for no reason. But for leaders like you and me, a moral high ground is too absolute. There are choices to be made. — Amanda Bouchet

For John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he's dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it's like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they're about a mile underground. He'd have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd. — Paul Keating

Everyone must know by now that the aim of Scrabble is to gain the moral high ground, the loser being the first player to slam the board shut and upset all the letters over the floor. — Craig Brown

We are passing through an eerie phase of history in which the things that everyone really knows are treated as unheard-of doctrines, a time in which the elements of common decency are themselves attacked as indecent. Nothing quite like this has ever happened before. Although our civilization has passed through quite a few troughs of immorality, never before has vice held the high moral ground. — J. Budziszewski

The moral high ground proved to be one hell of an aphrodisiac... — Eve A. Floriste

It was all very well occupying the moral high ground on electoral reform, but what really mattered, she thought, was how you treated your mother. — Alexander McCall Smith

Oh, it's simple pragmatism, Dad. It's called the real world. If we refused to do business with the morally questionable, the deal volume would drop in half and the good guys like us would end up poor. Then where would we all be?" said Roger. "On a nice dry spit of land know as the moral high ground?" suggested the Major. — Helen Simonson

I have a weak stomach. My wife is a doctor, so she finds it funny that I actually pass out when I get my blood drawn. I physically can't stand gore on screen. I can't stand blood and guts. Not for any puritanical/moral high-ground reason. I just don't want to black out. — Christopher Denham

My advice to you, Elsie, is go with your heart, not your head, because your head doesn't know what it wants. It only thinks about the moral high ground. And if your heart isn't happy, when you try to share it, you'll make others unhappy too. — Sarah Alexander

Why does she always have the moral high ground, what is it about women, always behaving so well and thinking of things we should have thought of first and shaming us? — Jill Dawson

There's never been a safer time to go for a ride. Sadly, though, there's a problem. You see, cycling is seen now not as something that might be exhilarating or even useful but as a frontline propaganda weapon in the war on capitalism, banking, freedom, McDonald's, injustice, Swiss drug companies, rape and progress. Every morning London is chock-full of little individually wrapped Twiglets, their wizened faces contorted with hatred for all that they see. Fat people. Cars. Chain stores. It's all fascism. Fascism, d'you hear? From what they see as the moral high ground, they sneer at pedestrians, howl at buses, bang on cars, scream at taxi drivers and charge through every convention that defines society with their walnutty bottoms in the air and their stupid legs going nineteen to the dozen. — Jeremy Clarkson

His mother had hated him for looking after her, then hated him for leaving. Five years living with an alcoholic woman and no one had thanked him. If there was such a thing as the moral high ground it was surely he who occupied it. — Mark Haddon

It was a long-held, multiheaded sensation formed from judgment, experience, and envy, and she didn't care for it. It wasn't that she necessarily thought that her negative opinions on raven boys were wrong. It was just that knowing Gansey, Adam, Ronan, and Noah complicated what she did with those opinions. It had been a lot more straightforward when she'd just assumed that she could despise them all from the thin air of the moral high ground. — Maggie Stiefvater

America has lost the moral high ground with the rest of the world, and we have fewer allies as a result. President Bush and his administration have undermined the war on terror by using tactics outlawed by international treaty and condemned by even our closest friends. — John Olver

I don't regard the real and true and authentic as something to claim as a moral high ground. — Rachel Kushner

We can't reform mandatory spending in this area until we first deal with ours. I tell my colleagues, 'Let's get the moral high ground and demonstrate that we want to make changes to our pension, and then we can deal with the big problems.' — Timothy Griffin

The moral high ground to which I aspired had turned into a slippery slope. — Alfred Alcorn

We, the public, are easily, lethally offended. We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground. From this high ground we can shoot down at our enemies and inflict heavy fatalities. We take pride in our short fuses. Our anger elevates, transcends. — Salman Rushdie

That's how hatred is created: two different groups, each insisting they're on the moral high ground — Neil Strauss

Mortals lie. Mortals steal. Mortals cheat. Such is the way of all sapient life. No species is exempt, no culture free of these sins. And yet me and my own strive to avoid such things, in spite of our admittedly devastating goals. Why? Because it gives us pleasure to know that no matter who we murder, maim, and harm, we still maintain the moral high ground. We do not lie. We do not steal. We do not cheat. We just kill and kill and kill. Without malice, without ill-will, we deal death and destruction equally to all. The world shall rebel, and the heavens shall shatter before us. And it will happen without us resorting to the petty tactics of those who seek to preserve this worthless existence." The — Ian Rodgers

And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground. — Lara Flynn Boyle

Looking back on 200 years of feminist agitation in this country, we've got to get it that the moral high ground doesn't get us anything. Pleading with powerful men never gets us what we need. Talking doesn't do it. Being right doesn't do it. Hardball politics does it ... and a political strategy. — Naomi Wolf

We have the - the longest, friendliest border, you know, for the - for the longest time in the history - in recorded history, really, with Canada. And they get to sit on their moral perch, you know, take the moral high ground, say, oh, United States, shame on you about Iraq. They make us look bad internationally. And it's really not fair. — Tucker Carlson

Thus, it's important to keep in mind that you should never go vagabonding out of a vague sense of fashion or obligation. Vagabonding is not a social gesture, nor is it a moral high ground. It's not a seamless twelve-step program of travel correctness or a political statement that demands the reinvention of society. Rather, it's a personal act that demands only the realignment of self. If this personal realignment is not something you're willing to confront (or, of course, if world travel isn't your idea of a good time), you have the perfect right to leave vagabonding to those who feel the calling. — Rolf Potts

As a teenager, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and a lot of that, for me, was about finding a moral high ground. As I've grown up, I've decided to abandon that because it made me judgmental and also stressed me out. — Veronica Roth

I don't claim any moral or ethical high ground, but I also have chosen not to run for public office. Shouldn't there be a higher standard of conduct for public officials? — Mark McKinnon

A person who is seeking to feel justification for some action might move from "What you've done angers me" to "What you've done is wrong." Popular justifications include the moral high ground of righteous indignation and the more simple equation known by its biblical name: an eye for an eye. — Gavin De Becker

Under the leadership of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the United States has given up the moral high ground that we used to occupy as an international leader. — Marty Meehan

The moral high ground is a lovely place. It won't stop a missile, though. It won't alter the trajectory of a gauss round. — James S.A. Corey

After all, you can't really blame the Waffen S.S. for doing what comes naturally. But a funny thing happened on the way to the moral high ground. — Garth Ennis