Best evolution & moral Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Nothing can better express the feelings of the scientist towards the great unity of the laws of nature than in Immanuel Kant's words: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing awe: the stars above me and the moral law within me."... Would he, who did not yet know of the evolution of the world of organisms, be shocked that we consider the moral law within us not as something given, a priori, but as something which has arisen by natural evolution, just like the laws of the heavens?”

Knows World Mind Two Feelings Law Given Heaven Stars Natural Moral Evolution Scientist Unity Two Things Awe Organisms Shocked Laws Of Nature Moral Law

Author:Konrad Lorenz

“We started off with physical evolution and got our form. Then we somehow developed language, which meant cultural evolution could race so we could change our behavior really quickly instead of over hundreds and hundreds of years. And then comes moral evolution, which means we're not frightfully far along with people. And maybe we end up with a spiritual evolution, which is this connectedness with the rest of the life forms on the planet.”

People Years Mean Ends Spiritual Form Language Race Moral Planets Evolution Behavior Connectedness Spiritual Evolution

Author:Jane Goodall

“For Immanuel Kant, the term anthropology embraced all the human sciences, and laid the foundation of familiar knowledge we need, to build solidly grounded ideas about the moral and political demands of human life. Margaret Mead saw mid-twentieth-century anthropology as engaged in a project no less ambitious than Kant's own, and her Terry Lectures on Continuities in Cultural Evolution provide an excellent point to enter into her reflections.”

“This is what evolution means--ordered progress; development from poorer to richer, from lower to higher, from less to greater--progress. In the material universe, progress to higher forms; in the moral universe, progress to higher life.”

Mean Form Universe Moral Greater Progress Materials Development Evolution Higher

Book:The Life that Really is

Source: The Life that Really is

“Ethical ideas and sentiments have to be considered as parts of the phenomena of life at large. We have to deal with man as a product of evolution, with society as a product of evolution, and with moral phenomena as products of evolution.”

Men Ideas Deals Moral Products Evolution Sentiments Ethical

Book:Ethics of Individual Life

Source: Ethics of Individual Life

“I can have little patience with those who oppose ... the theory of evolution or what are called "mechanistic" explanations of the phenomena of life because of certain moral consequences which at first seem to follow from these theories, and still less with those who regard it as irrelevant or impious to ask certain questions at all. By refusing to face the facts , the conservative only weakens his own position.”

“As ages roll on there is doubtless a progression in human nature. The intellectual comes to rule the physical, and the moral claims to subordinate both. It is no longer strength of body that prevails, but strength of mind; while the law of God proclaims itself superior to both.”

Mind Humans Body Age Law Moral Human Nature Evolution Intellectual Claims Superiors Progression Subordinates Strength Of Mind

Author:James McCosh

“You are inhuman brutes determined to rob us of our spiritual consolations and sweep away the moral foundations of our civilization, and on the other: You are obscurantist ignoramuses who'd like to shut down progress and drag us all back to the 16th century, with kings and priests telling us what to think.”

Thinking Spiritual Moral Progress Century Evolution Kings Civilization Foundation Determined Priests Drag Consolation Brutes Inhuman

Author:John Derbyshire

“Evolution throws a wonderful light on all the struggles, eccentricities, tortuous developments of the human conscience in the past. It is the only theory of morals that does. And evolution throws just as much light on the ethical and social struggle today; and it is the only theory that does. What a strange age ours is from the religious point of view! What a hopeless age from the philosopher's point of view! Yet it is a very good age, the best that ever was. No evolutionist is a pessimist.”

“Among all the many great transitions that have marked the evolution of Western civilisation ... there has been only one-the triumph of Christianity -that can be called in the fullest sense a "revolution": a truly massive and epochal revision of humanity's prevailing vision of reality, so pervasive in its influence and so vast in its consequences as to actually have created a new conception of the world, of history, of human nature, of time, and of the moral good.”

“We can, following the exemple of Kant, consider the moral development and improvement of men, as the supreme goal of human evolution.”

Men Humans Goal Moral Development Evolution Following Improvement Supreme Human Evolution Moral Development

Author:African Spir

“The moral improvement demands an evolution leading to a higher consciousness.”

Consciousness Moral Evolution Higher Demand Improvement Higher Consciousness

Author:African Spir

“Moral improvement (or perfecting) require an evolution leading to a higher consciousness, which is the true torch of life; it is what we have failed too much to appreciate, and that which would be fatal to fail to appreciate any longer ("pluslongtemps", Fr.); For if we do not take it upon ourselves to remedy in time to the moral colapse (or bankruptcy) that already threaten, the whole civilisation will risks to disappear.”

Ifs Whole Would Be Consciousness Moral Too Much Failing Risk Evolution Higher Appreciate Disappear Improvement Remedy Civilisation Torches Bankruptcy Higher Consciousness

Author:African Spir

“Evolution has no moral direction. An evolutionary understanding of human nature can explain the differing intuitions we have when we are faced with an individual rather than with a mass of people, or with people close to us rather than with those far away, but it does not justify those feelings.”

People Humans Doe Feelings Individual Understanding Moral Human Nature Evolution Mass Intuition Justify Far Away

Book:The Life You Can Save: How to play your part in ending world poverty

Source: The Life You Can Save: How to play your part in ending world poverty

“You can be a thorough-going Neo-Darwinian without imagination, metaphysics, poetry, conscience, or decency. For 'Natural Selection' has no moral significance: it deals with that part of evolution which has no purpose, no intelligence, and might more appropriately be called accidental selection, or better still, Unnatural Selection, since nothing is more unnatural than an accident. If it could be proved that the whole universe had been produced by such Selection, only fools and rascals could bear to live.”

“The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral; it must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels.”

Running Moral Society Evolution Morality Wheels Destined Celestial Groove

Book:The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude

Source: The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude

“The way you speak of the characters in your story shows what you think of the values of conservatives‚ or evolution, for example. It shows where your moral center is. So you are in the message business whether you like it or not.”

Thinking Way Character Stories Shows Values Speak Moral Example Evolution Messages You Like It

Author:Philip Pullman

“...to any one for whom wild things are something more than a pleasant diversion, (conservation) constitutes one of the milestones in moral evolution.”

Moral Evolution Pleasant Conservation Diversion Milestone Wild Things

Book:Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)

Source: Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)

“Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.”

Process Moral Failing Wind Evolution Behavior Meat Exhibits Leopards Baboons Moral Behavior

Author:Robert A. Heinlein

“Cultures are not the source of all morals, only a limited set of morals. Cultures can be graded and judged morally according to their contribution to the evolution of life.”

Culture Moral Source Evolution Contribution Judged Evolution Of Life

Book:LILA An Inquriry into Morals

Source: LILA An Inquriry into Morals

“Blake expressed some doubt as to whether God had made the tiger. But the tiger is in many ways an admirable animal. We have now to ask whether God made the tapeworm. And it is questionable whether an affirmative answer fits in either with what we know about the process of evolution or what many of us believe about the moral perfection of God.”

Ifs Knows Way Believe Made Asks Process Answers Animal Moral Doubt Evolution Fit Perfection Tigers Admirable Affirmative Questionable Blake Moral Perfection

Author:John B. S. Haldane

“Today we are living in an intellectual and technological paradise and a moral and social nightmare because the intellectual level of evolution, in its struggle to become free of the social level, has ignored the social level's role in keeping the biological level under control.”

Today Social Levels Moral Roles Struggle Evolution Intellectual Paradise Nightmare Technological Ignored

Book:LILA An Inquriry into Morals

Source: LILA An Inquriry into Morals

“The ultimate purpose of religious life is to make this evolution move in a direction far more important to the destiny of the ego than the moral health of the social fabric which forms his present environment.”

Important Moving Form Life Is Purpose Social Religious Moral Destiny Environment Evolution Ego Ultimate Fabric Religious Life

Book:Stories and Biographies from Iqbal

Source: Stories and Biographies from Iqbal

“It's partly the fault of the institutions of education. But it's partly the decision to be relieved of responsibility. Literature is simply the most focused form of the demands on the evolution of the species. It imposes a certain responsibility, moral, ethical and esthetic responsibility, and the species simply doesn't want to oblige.”

Want Form Certain Literature Decision Responsibility Moral Evolution Demand Institutions Faults Species Focused Ethical Relieved

Author:Joseph Brodsky

“In particular, I argue that in both evolution and creation we have rival religious responses to a crisis of faith-rival stories of origins, rival judgments about he meaning of human life, rival sets of moral dictates, and above all what theologians call rival eschatologies-pictures of the future and of what lies ahead for humankind.”

Humans Stories Lying Religious Moral Creation Particular Evolution Judgment Crisis Response Arguing Human Life Humankind Theologian Rivals Eschatology

Author:Michael Ruse

“I sincerely believe what happens in India has, I think, lessons, morals for the future evolution of humankind in the 21st century.”

Thinking Believe Happens Moral Century Evolution Lessons India Humankind 21st Century Sincerely

Author:Manmohan Singh

“Evolution may explain some features of the moral law, but it can't explain why it should have any real significance.”

Should May Real Law Moral Evolution Should Have Features Significance Moral Law

Author:Richard Dawkins

“I think moral philosophy is speculation on how we ought to live together done by people who have very little clue how people work. So I think most moral philosophy is disconnected from the species that we happen to be. In fact, they like it that way. Many moral philosophers insist that morality grows out of our rationality, that it applies to any rational being anywhere in the universe, and that it is not based on contingent or coincidental facts about our evolution.”

People Thinking Done Philosophy Together Universe Moral Evolution Morality Philosopher Rational Rationality Clue Speculation Moral Philosophy

Author:Jonathan Haidt

“Accepting evolution does not force us to jettison our morals and ethics, and rejecting evolution does not ensure their constancy.”

Doe Force Accepting Moral Evolution Ethics Rejecting Constancy

Book:Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

Source: Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

“Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.”

Source: Reaper Man: A Novel of Discworld

“We need a quickening of faith; faith in the power of the God of Pentecost to convict and convert three thousand in a day. Faith, not in a process of culture by which we hope to train children into a state of salvation, but faith in the mighty God who can quicken a dead soul into life in a moment; faith in moral and spiritual revolution rather than evolution.”

Needs Children Soul States Moments Spiritual Faith Culture Three Process Moral Revolution Evolution Thousand Salvation Train Mighty God Convicts Pentecost Quickening

Author:A. C. Dixon

“The downside, of course, is that over time religions become encrusted with precepts and ideas that are the antithesis of soul, as each faith tries to protect its doctrines and institution instead of nurturing the evolution of consciousness. If one is not careful to distinguish the genuine insights of a religion from its irrelevant accretions, one can go through life following an inappropriate moral compass.”

Source: Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning

“If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal, with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution - and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity.”

“As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best - what we call goodness or virtue - involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless selfassertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect , but shall help his fellows. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.”

“Looking to future generations, there is no cause to fear that the social instincts will grow weaker... the social instincts, - the prime principle of man's moral constitution - with the aid of active intellectual powers and the effects of habit, naturally lead to the golden rule, "As ye would that men should do to you; do ye to them likewise"; and this lies at the foundation of morality.”

“If you have a nation of men who have risen to that height of moral cultivation that they will not declare war or carry arms, for they have not so much madness left in their brains, you have a nation of lovers, of benefactors, of true, great, and able men.”

Ifs Men War Able Left Nations Brain Moral Progress Arms Evolution Lovers Madness Height Risen Cultivation Benefactors

Book:The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The fundamental religious objection to the theory of evolution is not scientific but moral. [Fundamentalists believe that] evolutionary theory must be opposed because it leads to rampant immorality, on both the personal and political scales. The basic cause of this immorality is atheism.”

Believe Political Causes Religious Moral Atheism Theory Evolution Fundamentals Scales Objections Immorality Theory Of Evolution

Author:Elizabeth S. Anderson

Evolution Quotes

Related topics

Evolution Quotes