MORALITY
MAKES A GENTLEMAN
“Morality” is defined as principles
concerning right and wrong or good and bad behavior. It also implies a system of
moral principles followed by a particular group of people. Consequently
different groups may have different moral systems. If smoking and drinking are
immoral in one religion, they may not be so in another religion. Another
example is war. Some religions justify it; some others condemn it and regard it
as devilish.
Cardinal virtues like chastity,
temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility make a person a
gentleman possessing socio-religious l morality.
Some common synonyms of morality are
---goodness, righteousness, rectitude, uprightness, integrity, justness, purity
and blamelessness.
The French writer and philosopher Voltaire
(1694-1778) said : All sects are
different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because
it comes from God.
According to another view: The
morality which is divorced from godliness, however specious and captivating to
the eye, is superficial and deceptive. The only morality that is clear in its
source, pure in its precepts, and efficacious in its influence, is the morality
of the divine . All else is, at best, but idolatory – the worship of something
of man’s own creation; and that imperfect and feeble, like himself, and wholly
insufficient to give him support and strength.
The Scottish divine Ralph Wardlaw (1779-1853
) says: Morality is religion in practice; religion is morality in principle.
Briefly speaking, morality stands
for prohibition of all sorts of corruption in every sphere of life.
The American essayist Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803-1882) believed that there can be no high civility without a deep morality.
Finally, this short quote by the
American minister and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) : “The
time is always right to do what is right.”
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G.R.Kanwal
10th August 2025
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