We ought not to extract pernicious honey from poison blossoms of misrepresentation and mendacious half-truth, to pamper the course appetite of bigotry and self-love.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Engaging in wrongdoing to prevent harm is inherently wrong.
This quote suggests that resorting to immoral actions in an attempt to avert negative consequences does not justify those actions. It highlights the ethical stance that doing harm, even for a purportedly good reason, is fundamentally misguided and cannot lead to true goodness.
Themes
EvilMoralityEthicsWrongdoingGoodness
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about ethics, when discussing the consequences of actions.
More from Samuel Taylor Coleridge
All quotes βCommon sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
Often do the spirits stride on before the event; and in today already walks tomorrow.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
Mr. Lyell's system of geology is just half the truth, and no more. He affirms a great deal that is true, and he denies a great deal which is equally true; which is the general characteristic of all systems not embracing the whole truth.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
To believe and to understand are not diverse things, but the same things in different periods of growth.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
Similar quotes
The human phenomenon is but the sum Of densely coiled layers of illusion Each of which winds itself on the supreme insanity That there are persons of any kind When all there can be is mindless mirrors Laughing and screaming as they parade about in an endless dream
Thomas LigottiRead
All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
Dalai LamaRead
A people armed and free, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression.
James MadisonRead
This is what language does: organize the world into manageable, and in some sense artificial, units that can then be inhabited and manipulated.
Stanley FishRead
Intelligence is a moral category.
Theodor AdornoRead
The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.
Norman CousinsRead