Daily Inspiration Quote by Peter Marshall

Marshall’s line lands like a pastoral jab: the problem isn’t ignorance, it’s appetite. By insisting “Most of us know perfectly well,” he strips away the comforting alibi that moral life is confusing or that guidance is hard to find. The bluntness is strategic. It collapses the distance between preacher and congregation - “us,” not “you” - while still tightening the noose. If we already know the right thing, then every detour is a choice, not a misunderstanding.

The engine of the quote is its pivot from intellect to desire. “Ought” invokes duty, conscience, even the accumulated weight of religious teaching. Then Marshall names the real antagonist: “we do not want to do it.” That phrase doesn’t accuse people of evil so much as of preference. The subtext is Augustinian: the will is divided, and sin often looks less like rebellion than like reluctant surrender to comfort, pride, resentment, or inertia. In other words, ethics isn’t an information problem; it’s a motivation problem.

Context matters. Marshall preached in an America where public religiosity and private behavior often diverged - a mid-century culture of respectable norms, civic faith, and quiet self-justification. The quote cuts through that polite moralism. It also anticipates modern self-help’s obsession with “accountability,” but with a sharper theological edge: if you “know perfectly well,” you’re responsible for the gap between belief and action.

As a piece of rhetoric, it works because it denies escape routes. No villain, no fog, no complexity to hide behind - just the uncomfortable fact that wanting can overpower knowing.