An Ideal Husband Morality and Ethics Quotes
How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue.
Quote #1
MRS. CHEVELEY. I have a distinct recollection of Lady Chiltern always getting the good conduct prize! (1.66)
Mrs. Cheveley thinks that ethics are just obedience.
Quote #2
MRS. CHEVELEY. [In her most nonchalant manner.] My dear Sir Robert, you are a man of the world, and you have your price, I suppose. (1.252)
Mrs. Cheveley is saying that a man of the world recognizes that principles bow before needs (i.e., he'll do what it takes to get what he wants politically). Sir Robert has accepted that law before, and Mrs. Cheveley expects he'll do so again. Like Lady Chiltern, she doesn't believe people change.
Quote #3
LADY MARKBY. Lady Chiltern is a woman of the very highest principles, I am glad to say. I am a little too old now, myself, to trouble about setting a good example, but I always admire people who do. (1.290)
It's funny how Lady Markby equates holding the highest principles with setting a good example. For her, if a tree falls in the forest and no one can hear it, it doesn't make a sound. In other words, morals only matter if other people can see you upholding them.
Quote #4
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Sitting down.] Sooner or later in political life one has to compromise. Every one does. (1.359)
Sir Robert feels the need to school his wife on the realities of politics…but he doesn't want to. He sounds a little childish with that last excuse, "Everyone's doing it!"
Quote #5
LADY CHILTERN. Circumstances should never alter principles! (1.362)
Lady Chiltern thinks of human behavior as solid and unchanging, impervious to everything around it. Oscar Wilde, history, and psychologists take another view. Procrastination break: google "Situationism."
Quote #6
LORD GORING. […] in England a man who can't talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over as a serious politician. (2.58)
Apparently people had double standards for their politicians even back in Victorian England.
Quote #7
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I would to God that I had been able to tell the truth . . . to live the truth. Ah! that is the great thing in life, to live the truth. (2.115)
Sir Robert is caught between a desire to come clean to his wife and to his public, and a very real understanding of the repercussions of admitting his crimes. No matter how long ago he committed his crimes, the danger of potential damage is real.