A Quote by Mason Cooley
Cheap thrill: moral outrage revels in its own innocence and in the guilt of the wicked Others.
Related Quotes
He that is conscious of guilt cannot bear the innocence of others:So they will try to reduce all others to their own level.
Focus on guilt will always breed fear, and focus on innocence will always breed love. Any time we project guilt onto someone else, we are fortifying the experience of guilt within ourselves. Like blood on Lady MacBeth's hands, we cannot remove our own guilty feelings as long as we are judging others.
It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
Guilt pins a fig-leaf; Innocence is its own adorning.
Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt.
Experience had taught me that innocence seldom utters outraged shrikes. Guilt does. Innocence is a mighty shield, and the man or woman covered by it, is much more likely to answer calmly: 'My life is blameless. Look into it, if you like, for you will find nothing.' That is the tone of innocence.
I personally do not believe in strident activism. I do not believe in moral outrage, because even moral outrage is rage, and rage is rage - it adds to more rage in the collective consciousness, if we understand how consciousness works.
If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.
To 'justify' means nothing else than to acquit of guilt him (her) who was accused as if his own innocence were confirmed.
Moral Injury is differentiated from PTSD in that it directly relates to guilt and shame veterans experience as a result of committing actions that go against their moral codes. Therapists who study and treat moral injury have found that no amount of medication can relieve the pain of trying to live with these moral burdens.
No acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our bosoms.
By abrogating all moral standards in their war against Israel, Arab and Muslim leaders initiated a process of moral collapse that has ended by soaking their own societies in blood. The terror they intended to inflict only upon others has rebounded with a hundred times greater horror upon their own lands.
All things truly wicked start from innocence.
[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships.
The innocence of those who grind the faces of the poor, but refrain from pinching the bottoms of their neighbour's wives! The innocence of Ford, the innocence of Rockefeller! The nineteenth century was the Age of Innocence--that sort of innocence. With the result that we're now almost ready to say that a man is seldom more innocently employed than when making love.
To the extent we are perceiving anyone's guilt -choosing to focus on the errors of their personality rather than the eternal innocence of their spirit - we're closing our hearts, deflecting a miracle and causing our own inevitable suffering.
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