Black and Gray Morality/Quotes

"Vice is punished, but virtue is not rewarded."

- George Orwell

"None of us was a saint."

- Max Payne, Max Payne

"There is no such thing as innocence -- only degrees of guilt."

- Space Marine Librarian, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

"Ah, finally, the ultimate showdown between vaguely-evil and somewhat ambiguous!"

- Tom Servo, Mystery Science Theater 3000: Escape 2000

"Goodness has only once found a perfect incarnation in a human body and never will again, but evil can always find a home there. Human nature is not black and white but black and grey."

- Graham Greene

"...the hero, who is intended to be a sympathetic and perhaps even noble character, is described as stamping on somebody's face, and then, having crushed the man's mouth in, grinding his heel round and round in it. Even when physical incidents of this kind are not occurring, the mental atmosphere of these books is always the same... If ultimately one sides with the police against the gangsters, it is merely because they are better organized and more powerful, because, in fact, the law is a bigger racket than crime."

- George Orwell, "Raffles and Miss Blandish"

"Michael Sullivan: He murdered Annie and Peter!

John Rooney: There are only murderers in this room! Michael! Open your eyes! This is the life we chose, the life we lead. And there is only one guarantee - none of us will see heaven.

Michael Sullivan: Michael could.

John Rooney: Then do everything that you can to see that that happens."

- Road to Perdition

"Phyllis: We're both rotten.

Walter Neff: Only you're a little more rotten."

- Double Indemnity

"Sometimes life seems so complicated. Nothing is truly good or truly evil. Everything seems to be a shade of grey. And then you spend some time with a man like Dukat, and you realize that there is such a thing as truly evil."

- Sisko, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

""I think her bad guys are badder than my bad guys.""

- Echo, Dollhouse

""What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!""

- Tony Montana, Scarface

"Shadow and shade mix together at dawn

But by the time you catch them simplicity's gone.

So we sort through the pieces, my friends and I.

Searching through the darkness to find the breaks in the sky.

...

The villain goes to jail while the hero goes free.

I wish it were that simple for me."

- David Crosby, "Hero"

""My job is to keep the majority of the people in this country alive. That’s it. If fifty-one percent eat a meal tomorrow and forty-nine percent don’t, I’ve done my job."

-- "The Beast", former U.S. President

"I wanted to be the President so I could fuck with people!""

- Garry "The Smiler" Callahan, current U.S. President, Transmetropolitan

"It is the logic of our times,

No subject for immortal verse -

That we who lived by honest dreams

Defend the bad against the worse."

- Poet and World War II Propagandist C. Day Lewis, Where are the War Poets?