7 Joseph Heller Quotes on Morality

Joseph Heller quotes on morality

10. 'Let someone else get killed!' 'Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?' 'Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?'

19. This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made.

25. 'Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.'

42. God does have this self-serving habit of putting all blame for His own mistakes on other people, doesn't He? He picks someone arbitrarily, unbidden, right out of the blue so to speak, and levies upon them tasks of monumental difficulty for which we don't always measure up in every particular, then charges US for HIS error in selecting imperfectly. He tends to forget that we are no more infallible than He is.

46. If character is destiny, the good are damned.

51. He who steals my purse steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.

59. No one lusting for blood is ever innocent. Or satisfied. I have not been innocent. Or satisfied. Just as the man who wants silver will not be satisfied with silver, a man who wants the blood of another will not be satisfied with having that blood, nor the woman with jewels be satisfied with jewels, and the man who wants women will not be satisfied with women. Don't try telling me different. Haven't I looked about me in the city and seen how all labor is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not filled? Don't I know myself that no want is ever satisfied? Wishes are granted, goals attained. But wants? Forget them. They live as long as the person they inhabit.