M Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with M. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Morality and its victim, the mother - what a terrible picture! Is there indeed anything more terrible, more criminal, than our glorified sacred function of motherhood?”
Source: Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926
“Morality and legality have nothing to do with one another. I'm more than fine with breaking a law if it disagrees with my values and morals.”
“Morality and legality have nothing to do with one another.”
“Morality and performance of duty are artificial measures that become necessary when something essential is lacking. The more successfully a person was denied access to his or her feelings in childhood, the larger the arsenal of intellectual weapons and the supply of moral prostheses has to be, because morality and a sense of duty are not sources of strength or fruitful soil for genuine affection. Blood does not flow in artificial limbs; they are for sale and can serve many masters. What was considered good yesterday can--depending on the decree of government or party--be considered evil and corrupt today, and vice versa.
But those who have spontaneous feelings can only be themselves. They have no other choice if they want to remain true to themselves. Rejection, ostracism, loss of love, and name calling will not fail to affect them; they will suffer as a result and will dread them, but once they have found their authentic self they will not want to lose it. And when they sense that something is being demanded of them to which their whole being says no, they cannot do it. They simply cannot.”
Source: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
“Morality and Power exist on parallel planes, occasionally intersecting but never really converging. They never have and never will.
Those who wield power seldom adhere to moral principles and those who uphold morality rarely possess power.”
“Morality and religion are but words to him who fishes in gutters for the means of sustaining life, and crouches behind barrels in the street for shelter from the cutting blasts of a winter night.”
“Morality and righteousness is based on intent, love, and in giving; yet, how is it that we as humans have come to view the act of sex with a different set of arbitrary laws? Specifically pigeonholed as an act between man and women, and with righteousness based on an unsystematic number of people we have slept with; as a civilization we have come to bind society with a set of laws largely advantageous to a specific sex, with the minority heavily antagonized and chastised. The universe knows not what sexual morality is, only what is right and wrong. The same principles that dictate morals also command the virtues of sex. Is it with the right intent? Is it based on love? Is it based on giving?”
Source: Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love
“Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds - and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe.”
Source: The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
“Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers' suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions and unwanted children”
Source: Population, Environment and Development
“Morality begins at the point of a gun.”
“Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects.
If you want to understand another group, follow the sacredness. As a first step, think about the six moral foundations, and try to figure out which one or two are carrying the most weight in a particular controversy. And if you really want to open your mind, open your heart first.
If you can have at least one friendly interaction with a member of the “other” group, you’ll find it far easier to listen to what they’re saying, and maybe even see a controversial issue in a new light. You may not agree, but you’ll probably shift from Manichaean disagreement to a more respectful and constructive yin-yang disagreement.”
Source: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
“Morality binds and blinds.”
“Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.”
Source: Can't We All Disagree More Constructively?: from The Righteous Mind
“Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams … but thereby makes us go blind to objective reality.”
“Morality binds people into groups. It gives us tribalism, it gives us genocide, war, and politics. But it also gives us heroism, altruism, and sainthood.”
“Morality can muddle mystical understanding and virtue is only necessary in so far as it favours success. All wisdom must be encompassed in order to achieve enlightenment.”
“Morality can provide at most only a severely limited and insufficient answer to the question of how a person should live.”
Source: The Reasons of Love
“Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
“Morality comes from a commitment to treat other as we wish to be treated, which follows from the realization that none of us is the sole occupant of the universe.”
“Morality comes from humanism and is stolen by religion for its own purposes.”
“Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.”
Source: A Sort Of Life
“Morality consists of suspecting other people of not being legally married.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, "I will not hit you if you do not hit me"; there is no trace of such a transaction. There IS a trace of both men having said, "We must not hit each other in the holy place.”
Source: The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
“Morality did not keep well; it required stable conditions; it was costly; it was subject to variations, and the market for it was uncertain.”
Source: The Oasis: A Novel
“Morality does not depend on religion.”
“Morality doesn’t mean ‘following divine commands’. It means ‘reducing suffering’. Hence in order to act morally, you don’t need to believe in any myth or story. You just need to develop a deep appreciation of suffering. If you really understand how an action causes unnecessary suffering to yourself or to others, you will naturally abstain from it. People nevertheless murder, rape and steal because they have only a superficial appreciation of the misery this causes. They are fixated on satisfying their immediate lust or greed, without concern for the impact on others – or even for the long-term impact on themselves. Even inquisitors who deliberately inflict as much pain as possible on their victim, usually use various desensitising and dehumanising techniques in order to distance themselves from what they are doing.”
Source: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
“Morality established from Science is the key to understanding Coexistence.
Science based on Morality is the reason we have prejudice for things we don't understand.”
“Morality exists in the neurons as a natural sensation. Religion only tries to codify it.”
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
Source: Outlander
“Morality for the upper classes, the gallows for the rabbles.”
“Morality has been conceived up to the present in a very narrow spirit, as obedience to a law, as inner struggle between opposite laws. As for me, I declare that when I do good I obey no one, I fight no battle and win no victory. The cultivated person has only to follow the delicious incline of his or her inner impulses. Be beautiful and then do at each moment whatever your heart may inspire you to do. This is the whole of morality.”
“Morality has got nothing to do with the politicians. Simply, because the straight line is considered by them as the longest distance between the two points.”
“Morality has in the past made progress when we broadened the category of things we weren't permitted to harm (animals, 'infidels'); saw through some delusions and rationalisations about what harms are good for people themselves (prison punishment, hysterectomies for unhappy 1950s wives); and readjusted our for-the-good of others criteria so as to demand only reasonable sacrifices (ceasing to use children as handy chimney sweeps).”
“Morality has nothing in common with politics.”
Source: Chronicles
“Morality has nothing to do with sports. Bad people can be good at sports and good people can be bad at sports.”
“Morality has nothing to do with such a man as I am.”
“Morality in Europe today is herd-morality”
“Morality in government begins with officials using words as honestly as possible to describe the truth.”
“Morality in sexual relations, when it is free from superstition, consists essentially in respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires.”
Source: Marriage and Morals
“Morality in the novel is the trembling instability of the balance. When the novelist puts his thumb in the scale, to pull down the balance to his own predilection, that is immorality.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
“Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth... Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves... Nevertheless... such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction... and any deeper meaning is illusory...”
“Morality is a burglar's tool whose merit lies in never being left behind at the scene of the crime.”
Source: Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms
“Morality is a code of black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit.”
Source: The virtue of selfishness: a new concept of egoism
“Morality is a human creation.
The Universe does not judge.”
“Morality is a luxury we can't afford out here. There's no right or wrong, just survival or death.”
“Morality is a man-made concept. The cosmos has no notion of values, ethics, or good deeds. Comets follow no path of righteousness.”
Source: Random Cosmos
“Morality is a man-made spectrum with two extremes between what each culture perceives as right and wrong, and such perception is extremely biased by specific social norms.”
Source: Honourable Defection
“Morality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.”
Source: Train to Pakistan
“Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are 'done away' and the rest is a matter of flying.”
Source: A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
“Morality is a neat cover for foul venom, but it does not alter the fact that the heart is vile, and the man himself is under damnation. Men will be damned with good works as well as without them, if they make them their confidence (rather than Jesus Christ).”