"To wipe off the froth of falsehood from the foaming lips of inebriated virtue, when fresh from the sexless orgies of morality and reeling from the delirious riot of religion, may doubtless be a charitable office."

Algernon Charles Swinburne Literature See all quotes by Algernon Charles Swinburne →

React to this quote

More by Algernon Charles Swinburne

“A blatant Bassarid of Boston, a rampant Maenad of Massachusetts.”

“Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die.”

“Fear that makes faith may break faith; and a fool Is but in folly stable.”

“I can truly say with Shelley I have been fortunate in friendships: that I have been no less fortunate in my enemies than in my friends.”

“It is long since Mr. Carlyle expressed his opinion that if any poet or other literary creature could really be "killed off by one critique" or many, the sooner he was so despatched the better; a sentiment in which I for one humbly but heartily concur.”

“Is not Precedent indeed a King of men?”

Resonant Thoughts

"Like a good and happy man increasing his virtue, he kissed her. She did not move away from him. She remained in the embrace of his right arm, her face nuzzling his shoulder, her eyes closed. He tipped…"

— Grace Paley

Literature1922–2007

#ethics

"habit of totalling pains and pleasures across individuals is one of the main errors in ethics today."

— Richard D. Ryder

Psychology1940

#ethics

"Though in many ways an enlightened man, when it came to religion he was a bigot of the first order. He is said to have made "the laws of the Prophet his guide." He indulged in wholesale slave-raiding,…"

— Firuz Shah Tughlaq

1309–1388

#religion

"I have always comprehended with difficulty... how persons pre-occupied doubtless by ideas, have seen any tendency to materialism in exposition of a series of facts deduced from documents. In giving to…"

— Adolphe Quetelet

Science1796–1874

#science