“The question is wholly other, deeper and equally relevant to all: whether we shall, by whatever means, succeed in reconstituting the natural world as the true terrain of politics, rehabilitating the personal experience of human beings as the initial measure of things, placing morality above politics and responsibility above our desires, in making human community meaningful, in returning content to human speech, in reconstituting, as the focus of all social action, the autonomous, integral, and dignified human "I."” WorldHumansMeanActionDesireSocialCommunityNaturalHuman BeingsResponsibilityFocusMoralitySucceedSpeechMeaningfulSustainabilityInitialsNatural WorldPersonal ExperiencesAutonomousTerrainSocial Action Author:Vaclav Havel
“When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole. It stands or falls with faith in God.” GivingMeanSelfWholeChristianTogetherFallViewsChristianityBreakFeetMoralityGiving UpConceptsFaith In GodEvidentChristian FaithChristian Morality Book:Twilight of the Idols Source: Twilight of the Idols
“Limited means often constitute the charm and force of primitive painting. Extension, on the contrary, leads the arts to decadence.” MeanArtForcePaintingMoralityContraryCharmPrimitiveExtensionsDecadence Book:Georges Braque Source: Georges Braque
“Virtue is not a chemical product...it is a historic product, like language and literature; and this means that if we cease to care about it, cease to cultivate it, cease to transmit its funded values, a large part of it will become meaningless, like a dead language to which we have lost the key.” IfsMeanCareValuesLiteratureLostLanguageVirtueProductsKeysMoralityCeaseChemicalsMeaninglessHistoricTransmit Author:Lewis Mumford
“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.” MeanNightBehindsPovertyCuttingStreetsMoralityEthicsWinterFishesShelterBlastBarrelsSustainingGuttersMorality And ReligionWinter NightSustaining Life Author:Horace Greeley
“To act without rapacity, to use knowledge with wisdom, to respect interdependence, to operate without hubris and greed are not simply moral imperatives. They are an accurate scientific description of the means of survival.” MeanUseMoralMoralitySurvivalEthicsGreedDescriptionAccurateImperativesInterdependenceHubrisMorality And Ethics Author:Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth
“In the 20th century, the position of the monarch as head of the Church of England was given a meaning which it never had before. You took the fact that the monarch was head of the Church of England to mean that the British monarchy was itself a religious or moral institution and the monarchy became a symbol of national public morality.” MeanFactsGivenChurchReligiousMoralCenturyPositionMoralityEnglandInstitutionsBritishSymbols20th CenturyMonarchyMonarchsChurch Of EnglandBritish Monarchy Author:David Starkey
“Moralities and religions are the principal means by which one can make whatever one wishes out of man, provided one possesses a superfluity of creative forces and can assert one's will over long periods of time in the form of legislation and customs.” MenMeanLongFormForceWishCreativePeriodsMoralityCustomsPrincipalLegislationLong Periods Of TimeMorality And Religion Book:The Will to Power Source: The Will to Power
“For many people, morality means a set of rules governing the disposition on one's genital organs; or a set of injunctions against lying, stealing, or killing except when such acts are sanctioned by church or state.” PeopleMeanStatesLyingChurchMoralityKillingStealingAbortionOrgansDispositionGoverning Author:Marilyn French
“Moral virtue is ... a mean between two vices, that of excess and that of defect, and ... it is no small task to hit the mean in each case, as it is not, for example, any chance comer, but only the geometer, who can find the center of a given circle.” MeanTwoGivenChanceMoralCasesVirtueExampleMoralityTasksVicesCirclesExcessDefectsMoral Virtues Book:The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle Source: The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle
“Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one's self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality.” MayMeanDoeSelfPleasureMoralityBenefitsHighestSelfishnessImmoral Author:Ayn Rand
“Morality must be the heart of our existence, if it is to be what it wants to be for us. The highest form of philosophy is ethics. Thus all philosophy begins with "I am." The highest statement of cognition must be an expression of that fact which is the means and ground for all cognition, namely, the goal of the I.” IfsWantHeartMeanPhilosophyFactsFormGoalExistenceExpressionMoralityHighestEthicsStatementsCognition Author:Novalis