Lord of the Flies Morality Quotes
Piggy
“’I got the conch, you just listen! The first thing we ought to have done was
made shelters down there by the beach. It wasn’t half cold down there last night. But
the first time Ralph says ‘fire’ you goes howling and screaming up this here
mountain. Like a pack of kids! How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put
first things first and act proper?’”
“’I got the conch,’ said Piggy indignantly. ‘Ralph – they ought to shut up,
oughtn’t they? You shut up you littleuns!”
Jack
“’I ought to be chief,’ said Jack with simple arrogance, ‘because I’m chapter
chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp’”
“’The rules,’ shouted Ralph, “your breaking the rules.’ Jack replied ‘who
cares.’ Ralph summoned his wits. ‘Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got.’
But Jack was shouting against him. ‘Ballocks to the rules! We’re strong – we hunt!”
Simon
“Here (in the jungle) the littleuns who had run after Simon caught up with
him. They talked, cried out unintelligibly, lugged him toward the trees. Then, amid
the roar of bees in the afternoon sunlight, Simon found for them the fruit they could
not reach, pulled off the choicest from the foliage, passed them back down to the
endless, outstretched hands.
“’Maybe, Simon said hesitantly, ‘maybe there is a beast ‘ . . . ‘What I mean is,
maybe its only us’ . . . Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s
essential illness. Inspiration came to him. ‘What’s the dirtiest thing there is?’”
Roger
“The dark boy, Roger, stirred at last and spoke up. ‘Let’s have a vote.’”
“Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was
a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw.
Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting children
was the protection of parents and school and policeman and the law. Roger’s arm
was conditioned by a civilization that new nothing of him and was in ruins.”
Ralph
“’And another thing’ said Ralph. ‘We can’t have everybody talking at once.
We’ll have to have ‘hands up’ like at school.’ He held the conch before his face and
glanced round the mouth. ‘Then I’ll give him the conch . . . I’ll give the conch to the
next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking . . . And he won’t be
interrupted. Except by me.’”
“Jack said ‘I apologize.’ The buzz from the hunters was one of admiration
at this handsome behavior. Clearly they were of the opinion that Jack had done the
decent thing, had put himself in the right by his generous apology and Ralph,
obscurely, in the wrong. They waited for an appropriately decent answer. Yet
Ralph’s throat refused to pass one. He resented, as an addition to Jack’s misbehavior,
this verbal trick. The fire was dead and the ship was gone. Could they not see?”