Morally Ambiguous Quotes & Sayings

I purposefully try to make films in that grey area, where things are morally ambiguous. It's like life: good people do horrible things, and bad people do good things, and there's beauty in horror and horror in beauty. — Harmony Korine

Nobody is ever just a straight up protagonist or antagonist - everybody's morally ambiguous. — Cheyenne Jackson

[I]t is tempting to look to biology to find or ratify boundaries such as "when life begins." But that only highlights the clash between two incommensurable ways of conceiving life and mind. The intuitive and morally useful concept of an immaterial spirit simply cannot be reconciled with the scientific concept of brain activity emerging gradually in ontogeny and phylogeny. No matter where we try to draw the line between life and nonlife, or between mind and nonmind, ambiguous cases pop up to challenge our moral intuitions. — Steven Pinker

Behind the English invasion of North America, behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality, was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based on private property. It was a morally ambiguous drive; the need for space, for land, was a real human need. But in conditions of scarcity, in a barbarous epoch of history ruled by competition, this human need was transformed into — Howard Zinn

All men are naturally included to obscure the morally ambiguous element in their political cause by investing it with religious sanctity. — Reinhold Niebuhr

It is properly said that the Devil can "quote Scripture to his purpose." The Bible is full of so many stories of contradictory moral purpose that every generation can find scriptural justification for nearly any action it proposes - from incest, slavery, and mass murder to the most refined love, courage, and self-sacrifice. And this moral multiple personality disorder is hardly restricted to Judaism and Christianity. You can find it deep within Islam, the Hindu tradition, indeed nearly all the world's religions. Perhaps then it is not so much scientists as people who are morally ambiguous. It — Carl Sagan

And ... by the pricking of my thumbs, something morally ambiguous this way comes. — Simon R. Green

It's not all 'Jane Eyre' out there. In her sweet, honorable, slightly passive-aggressive way, Jane was as perfect as a protagonist can get while remaining interesting; in fact, she's one of my favorites. But most characters are more morally ambiguous. — Susan Isaacs

Real politics is messy and morally ambiguous and doesn't make for a compelling thriller. — James Surowiecki

It's good to have these stories in our holy books, to remind us that they were written by humans. Filthy-minded, morally ambiguous humans. — Suzanne Morrison

If I see something that's morally ambiguous or ambiguously beautiful or has some pull in some way, I won't censor myself; I always run towards the light. — Harmony Korine

I always end up taking people that are morally ambiguous. — Billy Crudup

For some, vampires are still firmly in the 'evil, scary' column. However, in recent decades, vampires also run the gamut from evil to morally ambiguous all the way to fangless and vegetarian. I think part of their appeal lies in their versatility. Vampires can be the villain, the hero, and everything in between, all depending on the writer's whim. You'll also never hear me say that anyone is doing vampires 'wrong' because unless a real vampire stands up and sets the record straight, it's anyone's game as a far as defining them in fiction. — Jeaniene Frost