The heresy of an age of reason. I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
(0 Reviews)

In "A Clockwork Orange," Anthony Burgess explores the conflict between human reason and free will. The protagonist acknowledges the difference between right and wrong, yet feels compelled to act against his own moral judgment. This illustrates the struggle between rational thought and the innate desire to indulge in base instincts, suggesting that knowledge alone does not lead to virtuous behavior.

The quote encapsulates a key theme of the book: the heresy of an age that values reason yet overlooks the intrinsic flaws of human nature. It raises questions about the capacity for moral choice and whether understanding the right path is enough for true righteousness. Burgess challenges readers to confront the complexities of ethics and the essence of free will, emphasizing that knowing one’s duty does not always translate to action.

Categories
good and evil
Book
A Clockwork Orange
Author
Anthony Burgess
Votes
0
Page views
30
Update
February 02, 2025
Report
Report a Problem

Rate the Quote

Add Comment & Review

User Reviews

Based on 0 reviews
5 Star
0
4 Star
0
3 Star
0
2 Star
0
1 Star
0
Add Comment & Review
We'll never share your email with anyone else.
More »

Other quotes in A Clockwork Orange

But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines? I am serious with you, brothers, over this. But what I do I do because I like to do.
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines? I am serious with you, brothers, over this. But what I do I do because I like to do.
Audiences did not exactly clamour for their money back, but they wondered why Kubrick left out the dénouement. People wrote to me about this-indeed much of my later life has been expended on Xeroxing statements of intention and the frustration of intention-while both Kubrick and my New York publisher coolly bask in the rewards of their misdemeanour. Life is, of course, terrible.
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
Audiences did not exactly clamour for their money back, but they wondered why Kubrick left out the dénouement. People wrote to me about this-indeed much of my later life has been expended on Xeroxing statements of intention and the frustration of intention-while both Kubrick and my New York publisher coolly bask in the rewards of their misdemeanour. Life is, of course, terrible.
Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog?' And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder still, creeching: 'Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog?' And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder still, creeching: 'Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?
Yeah yes, yes, that's it. The youth had to end, oh yes. But youth is just to be like an animal. No, it is like being one of the tiny toys that we are perplexed, not just to be an animal, but also to be sold in these streets. But he goes straight and hits something, Bam Bam and does what he does without his hand. Being young is like being one of these tiny machines. {syf. 167}
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
Yeah yes, yes, that's it. The youth had to end, oh yes. But youth is just to be like an animal. No, it is like being one of the tiny toys that we are perplexed, not just to be an animal, but also to be sold in these streets. But he goes straight and hits something, Bam Bam and does what he does without his hand. Being young is like being one of these tiny machines. {syf. 167}
Good is a choice. Any man unable to choose ceases to be a man.
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
Good is a choice. Any man unable to choose ceases to be a man.
It is not the novelist's job to preach; it is his duty to show.
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
It is not the novelist's job to preach; it is his duty to show.
More »

Other quotes in good and evil

Once you have taken in evil with you, it no longer demands that you believe him.
Franz Kafka The Zürau Aphorisms
Once you have taken in evil with you, it no longer demands that you believe him.
To do the negative is still imposed on us, the positive is already given to us.
Franz Kafka The Zürau Aphorisms
To do the negative is still imposed on us, the positive is already given to us.
Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal.
Elisabeth Elliot A Chance to Die: The Life...
Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal.
People who live in the luxury of a steady paycheck and food in their bellies get too caught up in right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and bad, heroes and villains, even truth and lies. As if we're all either one or the other. As if we all have a choice. As if I have a choice. But I don't believe in choices. I believe in survival.
Katie McGarry Chasing Impossible
People who live in the luxury of a steady paycheck and food in their bellies get too caught up in right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and bad, heroes and villains, even truth and lies. As if we're all either one or the other. As if we all have a choice. As if I have a choice. But I don't believe in choices. I believe in survival.
The people who deserved to die took forever to do so. Those who deserved to live always went too soon.
Rick Riordan The Burning Maze
The people who deserved to die took forever to do so. Those who deserved to live always went too soon.
The heresy of an age of reason. I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
The heresy of an age of reason. I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.
More »

Popular quotes

Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her. Mitch Albom
All our human endeavours are like that, she reflected, and it is only because we are too ignorant to realize it, or are too forgetful to remember it, that we have the confidence to build something that is meant to last. Alexander McCall Smith
The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie's age – the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. {All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.} Alexander McCall Smith
The Red Lion was a four-ale bar with a handful of lowbrowed sons of toil who looked as though they might be related to one another in ways frowned on by the Old Testament. Sebastian Faulks
In fact, none of us knows how he ever managed to get his LLB in the first place. Maybe they're putting law degrees in cornflakes boxes these days. Alexander McCall Smith
Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search. And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end? I shrugged. You see? He leaned back. He smiled. When you come to the end, that's where God begins. Mitch Albom
Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes. Mitch Albom
You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. Mitch Albom
we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality-and, in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization. Mitch Albom
But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind. David Mitchell
All Categories »

Categories

love
inspirational
history
soul