Quotessence
Home / Topics / Moral Quotes

Moral Quotes

Browse 6484 quotes about Moral.

Related topics

PeopleMenIfsThinkingWorldMoralityLawHumansValuesWayPoliticalMayShouldCharacterPrinciplesBelieveKnowsEthicsIntellectualDoeNeedsReligiousVirtueSocialGivingReasonWellsActionSpiritualGovernmentKindPersonsEvilMindCountryFirstsChildrenMeanWantWarIndividualResponsibilityStatesHas BeensFactsSelfIdeasObligationTryingCodeNationsMannersIssuesMadeProblemMatterRealStandardsMoral LawDutyForceOrderFeelsImportantMoral PrinciplesStoriesArtChristianHeartMoral ValuesEthicalLongFormUseBeliefJusticeSeemsTwoAmericaEndsAuthorityLibertyMoral ObligationCertainChoicesReligionFeelingsAnimalCultureEconomicLiteraturePhilosophyStillsNaturalImmoralWholeConscienceSoulLooksOpinionmore

Moral Quotes

“What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without ground for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.”

IfsMatterAgeAbleLastsFormWaitingCommunityDarkMoralVirtueStageHorrorIntellectualTraditionLocalsConstructionWhat MattersFrontiersCivilityGoverningDark AgesBarbariansMoral Life
Book:After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory
Create image

“Scandal is great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt, a moral emotion that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return. With contempt you don't need to right the wrong (as with anger) or flee the scene (as with fear or disgust). And the best of all, contempt is made to share. Stories about the moral failings of others are among the most common kinds of gossip, they are a stable of talk radio, and they offer a ready way for people to show that they share a common moral orientation.”

PeopleWayNeedsGivingFeelsKindMadeStoriesShowsFeelingsCommonEmotionMoralFailingShareReadyReturnSceneOffersAskingRadioEntertainmentGossipContemptStableDisgustingSuperiorityScandalOrientationTalk RadioMoral SuperiorityContempt You
Book:The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
Create image

“The important thing is to be able to understand anyone who has something useful to say. - There is a general moral here. Be very careful and very clear about what you say. But do not be dogmatic about your own language. Be prepared to express any careful thought in the language your audience will understand. And be prepared to learn from someone who talks a language with which you are not familiar.”

ImportantAbleLanguageMoralAudienceClearImportant ThingsPreparedCarefulFamiliarBe PreparedDogmatic
Book:An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic Desk Examination Edition
Create image

“A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.”

MindMayReasonUseLife IsMoralStudentsDivineRegardPracticalsChiefsCompareVolumeMoralist
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson: LL.D. A New Edition in Twelve Volumes. With an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq
Create image

“In times of uncertainty, we tend to move away from deterministic world views. And when we try to find moral footing for our actions, we compare ourselves to the foil of all foils, the Nazi period. It's a quest for moral certainty by saying, "Even if we're not doing great these days, at least we're not the Third Reich." Which can be consoling or alarmist. There's always a present-day agenda behind it.”

IfsWorldTryingActionMovingViewsBehindsMoralPeriodsThirdsCertaintyUncertaintyThese DaysCompareAgendasQuestsNaziOur ActionsPresent DayWorld ViewConsolingFoilsAlarmists
Author:Gavriel David Rosenfeld
Create image

“Church, the spiritual power, and the executive power are working today united in a system that confronts people. This alliance or cooperation between the spiritual power and the executive power, between the church and the government, unfortunately takes away the Church's basic mission. It takes away their right to speak on moral or ethical subjects.”

PeopleGovernmentTodaySpiritualSpeakChurchUnitedMoralSubjectsMissionsExecutivesEthicalCooperationAlliancesSpiritual PowerExecutive Power
Author:Andrey Zvyagintsev
Create image

“Protestants, from the first, have been distinguished from their opponents by what they do not believe; to throw over one more dogma is, therefore, merely to carry the movement one stage further. Moral fervor is the essence of the matter.”

FirstsBelieveHas BeensMatterMoralStageMovementEssenceOpponentsDogmaDistinguishedProtestantsFervor
Book:Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Create image

“There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of its many rungs, three are the most important. People used to make human sacrifices to their god, perhaps even sacrificing those they loved the best ... Then, during the moral epoch of humanity, people sacrificed the strongest instincts they had, their 'nature,' to their god... Finally: what was left to be sacrificed? ... Didn't people have to sacrifice God himself and worship rocks, stupidity, gravity, fate, or nothingness out of sheer cruelty to themselves?”

PeopleHumansImportantUsedHumanityThreeLeftReligiousMoralFateSacrificeRocksWorshipInstinctStupidityCrueltyStrongestGravitySheerNothingnessLaddersEpoch
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“According to the classic liberal-arts ideal, learning promises liberation, but it is not liberation from demanding moral ideals and social norms, or liberation to act on our desires-it is, rather, liberation from slavery to those desires, from slavery to self.”

ArtSelfDesireSocialMoralPromiseIdealsSlaveryLiberationClassicNormSocial NormsLiberal Arts
Book:Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism
Create image

“Above all, creators remain drawn to the age-old paradoxes that philosophy grapples with [and]...that art occasionally resolves...the problem of the one and the many; unity and variety; determinism and freedom; mechanism and vitalism; good and evil; time and eternity; the plenum and the void; moral absolutism and relativism... These are the basic problems of human existence, and as far as we possibly can we arrange things to forget them.”

HumansArtPhilosophyProblemAgeEvilForgetExistenceMoralEternityUnityCreatorVarietyGood And EvilParadoxResolveVoidMechanismHuman ExistenceDeterminismRelativismAbsolutismMoral Absolutism
Author:Frank Barron
Create image

“I believe that a religious conversion is the only way to stimulate the peoples of the industrialized nations to be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of esho funi (the oneness of self and environment). ... I wish the entire world would accept as an item of religious faith the concept of esho funi and its moral obligations.”

WorldWayBelieveSelfI BelieveNationsWishReligiousAcceptingMoralEnvironmentSacrificeWillingConceptsSakeConversionObligationOnenessItemsReligious FaithMoral Obligation
Author:Arnold J. Toynbee
Create image

“While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men.”

MenEndsEarthPoliticalPurposeNationsPowerfulNumbersLibertyMoralConditionsFellowsInstitutionsBlessedExcellenceSatisfactionCreatorSuperiorsProportionMost PowerfulPortionsFellow ManDwellingTenureBeneficencePolitical Institutions
Book:John Quincy Adams and American continental empire: letters, papers and speeches
Create image

“If the majority is moral then why do they need to be ruled by a group of people who are power hungry and gun hungry and probably not quite so good? And evil people want two things: they want something for nothing, and to escape the consequences of their actions, which is pretty much the definition of what government is.”

PeopleIfsWantNeedsTwoGovernmentActionEvilMoralGroupsGunConsequenceMajorityDefinitionsHungryTwo ThingsGood And EvilWant SomethingEvil PeoplePower Hungry
Author:Stefan Molyneux
Create image

“I know that I shall have lost to the jungle if I take a weak moral standpoint or relax my mental punctiliousness. I have therefore come to a certain belief which is based on three powerful effective commandments: THOU SHALT BE ENTERTAINING AT ALL TIMES. THOU SHALT OBEY THY ARTISTIC CONSCIENCE AT ALL TIMES. THOU SHALT MAKE EACH FILM AS IF IT WERE THY LAST.”

IfsKnowsLastsFilmCertainThreeBeliefLostPowerfulMoralConscienceWeakAll TimeArtisticRelaxEntertainingCommandmentsJungleStandpoint
Author:Ingmar Bergman
Create image

“So long as the great majority of the poor in any country are inert and are laboring without any hope in this world, the whole associated life of that community rests on an equivocal foundation. Its moral and social order is tied to an economic system which starves and mutilates the great majority of the population, and under such conditions its religion necessarily becomes a spiritual drug, administered for the purpose of subduing the popular discontent and relieving the popular misery.”

WorldLongCountryWholeSpiritualPurposeOrderSocialCommunityPoorMoralEconomicConditionsThis WorldDrugFoundationMajorityMiseryPopulationTiedDiscontentEconomic SystemsSocial Order
Author:Herbert Croly
Create image

“From the moment when a subordinate class becomes really independent and dominant, calling into being a new type of State, the need arises concretely, of building a new intellectual and moral order, i.e. a new type of society, and hence the need to elaborate the most universal concepts, the most refined and decisive ideological weapons.”

NeedsStatesMomentsOrderMoralClassBuildingTypeCallingWeaponsIntellectualConceptsUniversalIndependentAriseDominantIdeologicalRefinedSubordinates
Author:Antonio Gramsci
Create image

“The 'realist' conception of continuing old-fashioned 'balance of power' politics may have been well founded in the past, but it is inconsistent with our increasing interdependent world. On moral grounds alone there can be no justification for the 20th century level of killing. To settle disputes without violence must become the primary goal of foreign policy for every nation.”

WorldWellsMayHas BeensPastNationsGoalLevelsMoralViolenceCenturyPolicyBalanceKillingPrimariesSettlingConceptionForeign PolicyJustificationContinuing20th CenturyOld FashionedDisputesRealistInconsistentBalance Of PowerPower Politics
Author:Robert McNamara
Create image

“Of course, this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so may separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave the final result to itself.”

IfsWellsMayCoursesSidesHoursLinesResultsMoralYouthDrinkAuthorityAnxietyFinalsBusySaintPracticalsPermanentExpertsSpheresDrunkards
Book:Habit
Create image