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Moral Quotes

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Moral Quotes

“Let us wage a moral and political war against war itself, so that we can cut military spending and use that money for human needs.”

Needs Humans War Use Political Moral Cutting Military Spending Human Needs Against War Military Spending

Author:Bernie Sanders

“I think, as written, 'Assassins' simply acknowledges the very human need to be acknowledged. As director, I've got to put aside any particular biases or prejudices that, as a moral human being, this is not an appropriate or acceptable way to get what you want.”

Thinking Way Want Needs Humans Human Beings Moral Written Particular Directors Prejudice What You Want Acknowledge Appropriate Acceptable Assassins Human Needs

Author:Joe Mantello

“I have values. But morals are Christian. There's no religion here. Values. Don't hurt when you don't need to, but don't let anybody step over that line - it's an invisible line, but it's respect for somebody's space.”

Needs Christian Values Hurt Lines Space Moral Steps Invisible

Author:John Lydon

“I need my mom for moral support plus to do the house things.”

Needs House Moral Support Mom My Mom Plus Moral Support

Author:Melky Cabrera

“I believe that the imperative need of the day is not simply revival, but a radical reformation that will go to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies and deal with causes rather than with consequences, with the disease rather than with symptoms.”

Needs Believe Spiritual Religion I Believe Causes Deals Moral Christianity Disease Consequence Roots Radical Symptoms Imperatives Revival Reformation Malady

Author:Aiden Wilson Tozer

“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.”

People Men Needs Belief Community Levels Existence Moral Integrity Cynical Man Of Integrity Squalor

Book:Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?

Source: Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?

“We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust. We must dissent from a nation that has buried its head in the sand, waiting in vain for the needs of its poor, its elderly, and its sick to disappear and just blow away. We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education or hope. We must dissent from the poverty of vision and the absence of moral leadership. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”

Source: Supreme Justice: Speeches and Writings

“If we would accept heaven's life, we need by all means to live in the world and to participate in its duties and affairs. In this way, we accept a spiritual life by means of our moral and civic life; and there is no other way a spiritual life can be formed within us, no other way our spirits can be prepared for heaven. This is because living an inner life and not an outer life at the same time is like living in a house that has no foundation, that gradually either settles or develops gaping cracks or totters until it collapses.”

Ifs World Way Needs Mean Spiritual Spirit House Heaven Accepting Moral Duty Foundation Prepared Affair Settling Cracks Spiritual Life Collapse Be Prepared Civics Inner Life

Book:Heaven and hell

Source: Heaven and hell

“We need a regime change in this country.... If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority.”

Ifs Needs Country Loses Moral Authority Iraq Strikes Regimes Moral Authority Regime Change

Author:Jesse Jackson

“Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.”

Source: In Praise of Idleness

“My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis, it's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act, that's a renewable resource, let's renew it.”

People World Needs Political Moral Issues Resources Crisis Fellows Climate Solve Exception Moral Issues Political Issues Renewable Resources

Author:Al Gore

“What really worries me is that those who are in positions of power are not really affected by what we are writing. In the moral dialogue you want to start, you really want to involve the leaders. People ask me: "Why were you so bold as to publish A Man of the People? How did you think the Government was going to take it? You didn't know there was going to be a coup?" I said rather flippantly that nobody was going to read it anyway, so I wasn't likely to be fired from my official position. It's a distressing thought that we cannot engage our leaders in the kind of moral debate we need.”

Source: Conversations with Chinua Achebe

“The real need of the day is moral and spiritual rearmament. God's Living Spirit can transcend conflicting political systems, can reconcile order and freedom, can rekindle true patriotism, can unite all citizens in the service of the nation, and all nations in the service of mankind.”

Needs Real Spiritual Political Spirit Order Nations Moral Mankind Citizens Reconcile Political Systems True Patriotism

Author:Stanley Baldwin

“Even a woman who has the soul of a pirate, at least pirate morals, even a woman who prefer loneliness to the bickerings and constraints of heterosexual marriage, even such a woman who is a freak in our society needs a home... The only characteristic freaks share is our knowledge that we don't fit in.”

Needs Soul Home Moral Share Fit Characteristics Our Society Freak Constraints Pirate Heterosexual Marriage

Author:Kathy Acker

“It is so hard for an evolutionary biologist to write about extinction caused by human stupidity. Let me then float an unconventional plea, the inverse of the usual argument. The extinction of Partula is unfair to Partula. That is the conventional argument, and I do not challenge its primacy. But we need a humanistic ecology as well, both for the practical reason that people will always touch people more than snails do or can, and for the moral reason that humans are legitimately the measure of all ethical questions for these are our issues, not nature's.”

“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.”

“Is it stupidity or is it moral cowardice which leads men to continue professing a creed that makes self-sacrifice a cardinal principle, while they urge the sacrificing of others, even to the death, when they trespass against us? Is it blindness, or is it an insance inconsistency, which makes them regard as most admirable the bearing of evil for the benefit of others, while they lavish admiration on those who, out of revenge, inflict great evils in return for small ones suffered? Surely our barbarian code of right needs revision, and our barbarian standard of honour should be somewhat changed.”

Source: Works: The study of sociology

“Any church which forsakes the regular and uniform for the periodical and spasmodic service of God, is doomed to decay; any church which relies for its spiritual strength and growth entirely upon seasons of "revival," will very soon have no genuine revivals to rely on. Our holy God will not conform His blessings to man's moods and moral caprice. If a church is declining, it may require a "revival" to restore it; but what need was there of its declining?”

Ifs Men Needs May Spiritual Growth Church Moral Holy Blessing Seasons Mood Genuine Gods Will Rely Decay Uniforms Doomed Conform Revival Forsake Caprice Spiritual Strength Holy God

Author:Theodore L. Cuyler

“We are humanity, Kant says. Humanity needs us because we are it. Kant believes in duty and considers remaining alive a primary human duty. For him one is not permitted to “renounce his personality,” and while he states living as a duty, it also conveys a kind of freedom: we are not burdened with the obligation of judging whether our personality is worth maintaining, whether our life is worth living. Because living it is a duty, we are performing a good moral act just by persevering.”

“America desperately needs a moral rebirth. We need to implore God's blessings on our country and ask Him to forgive our sinfulness and restore our moral perspective.”

Needs Country America Asks Moral Perspective Blessing Forgiving Our Country Rebirth Sinfulness

Author:Donald Wildmon

“This is the very heart of true morality--not to struggle, not to fight with any weapons, for one's self alone--but to struggle and to fight for the common interest, to wield the power of brain and good right arm if need be for one's family, for the ordered community of life, for the state, for moral principles, humanity, and the common good.”

Ifs Needs Heart Self States Humanity Fighting Interest Community Common Brain Moral Principles Struggle Arms Morality Weapons Common Good Moral Principles Common Interests

Author:Joseph Alexander Leighton

“One needs to continually make sense of a baffingly complex, constantly changing environment. Brief, succinct quotes can quickly produce clarity amid moral murkiness”

Needs Moral Environment Produce Complexes Clarity Make Sense Changing Environment

Author:V. Vale

“I want here to make three suggestions: first, that the doubts the ordinary man feels about religion are justified, and need not be stifled or concealed; second, that there is no ground for the view that Christianity is the only alternative to communism, or that there can be no sound character training that is not based on religion; and, third, I want to make some practical suggestions to the parents who are not believers, on what they should tell the children about God, and what sort of moral training they should give them.”

“You should know as much as you can about the human species if you have a hand in designing human society. Of course, I'm not saying that you can derive moral rules from nature - that's deriving an ought from an is, as the philosophers say - but you do need to know what kind of animals we are if you want to design a stable society.”

Ifs Knows Want Needs Should Humans Kind Hands Animal Moral Design Ought Species Philosopher Stable Human Society Human Species

Author:Frans de Waal

“As human beings we are all the same. We have this marvelous intelligence, which sometimes creates problems for us, but when influenced by warm-heartedness can be very constructive. In this context we need to appreciate the value of having moral principles.”

Needs Humans Sometimes Problem Values Human Beings Moral Principles Appreciate Intelligence Warm Marvelous Constructive Sameness Moral Principles Most Meaningful Learn To Appreciate

Author:Dalai Lama

“I think that the Bible as a system of moral guidance in the 21st century is insufficient, to put it mildly. I feel quite strongly that we need a new moral lodestone if we can't rely on what is inside our own selves. Which I think, actually, is pretty reliable.”

Ifs Thinking Needs Feels Self Moral Century Guidance Rely 21st Century Insufficient

Author:Emma Thompson

“There are so many intellectual and moral angels battling for rationalism, good citizenship, and pure spirituality; so many and such eminent ones, so very vocal and authoritative! The poor devil in man needs all the support and advocacy he can get. The artist is his natural champion. When an artist deserts to the side of the angels, it is the most odious of treasons.”

Source: Collected Works: Do what you will

“Being rational is a moral Imperative. You should never be stupider than you need to be.”

Needs Should Moral Rational Imperatives

Author:Charlie Munger

“The sanguine assurance that men and nations can be legislated into goodness, that pressure from without is equivalent to a moral change within, needs a strong backing of inexperience.”

Men Needs Law Strong Nations Moral Goodness Pressure Assurance Inexperience Sanguine

Book:American Austen: The Forgotten Writing of Agnes Repplier

Source: American Austen: The Forgotten Writing of Agnes Repplier

“The true historian, therefore, seeking to compose a true picture of the thing acted, must collect facts and combine facts. Methods will differ, styles will differ. Nobody ever does anything like anybody else; but the end in view is generally the same, and the historian's end is truthful narration. Maxims he will have, if he is wise, never a one; and as for a moral, if he tell his story well, it will need none; if he tell it ill, it will deserve none.”

Ifs Needs Wells Doe Ends Facts Stories Views Moral Wise Style Deserve Method Ill Seeking Historian Truthful Maxims Narration

Book:The collected essays & addresses of the Rt. Hon. Augustine Birrell, 1880-1920

Source: The collected essays & addresses of the Rt. Hon. Augustine Birrell, 1880-1920

“How dominating is appetite, how enveloping immediate experience! Even the philosophically minded among us capitulate, ultimately, to the narrowest sense of personal need. Political time moves at a snail's pace because it is only with nearly insurmountable difficulty that moral discomfort takes root in the best of people, forcing an imperative out of a complaint; so viscerally repugnant is it for a critical mass to find the prevailing system unbearable, much less prepare to take up arms against it.”

“It is an assumption that there is always one single dimension for assessing persons and their actions that has canonical priority. This is the dimension of moral evaluation; "good/evil" is supposed always to trump any other form of evaluation, but that is an assumption, probably the result of the long history of the Christianisation and then gradual de-Christianisation of Europe, which one need not make. Evaluation need not mean moral evaluation, but might include assessments of efficiency, ... simplicity, perspicuousness, aesthetic appeal, and so on.”

Needs Mean Persons Long Might Action Form Evil Results Moral Trump Europe Simplicity Priorities Appeals Assumption Dimensions Aesthetic Efficiency Assessment Evaluation Good Evil Assessing

Author:Raymond Geuss

“It goes without saying that only inner greatness possess a true value ("une valeur véritable,", Fr.) . Any attempt to rise up (or at rising up, - "s'élever", Fr.) outwardly above others, or to want (or wish) to impose one's superiority, denote a lack of moral greatness, since we do not try to replace ("suppléer", Fr.) in that way (.... in French "par là", Fr.) to what, if we did really possess it, would have no need whatsoever to flaunt itself.”

Ifs Way Want Needs Trying Values Wish Moral Greatness Rising What If Superiority Levers True Value Rising Up

Author:African Spir

“You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't decide right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion.”

Ifs Needs Moral Empathy

Author:Kane

“All my businesses are scrupulously legal. Not because I have any moral problems with crime. It just makes my life easier to obey the law. Crime is for poor people; you don't need to rob the bank if you own it.”

People Ifs Needs Problem Law Poor Money Moral Crime Easier Poor People

Book:I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President

Source: I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President

“Every country that aspires to become a nation needs its heroes, its eminent civic and moral leaders, and if it doesn't have them, it's our duty to invent them.”

Ifs Needs Country Nations Leader Moral Duty Hero Aspire Civics

Book:Sweet Diamond Dust: And Other Stories

Source: Sweet Diamond Dust: And Other Stories

“I think the kids today need to hear more about morals and values.”

Thinking Needs Kids Today Values Moral

Author:Isaac Hayes

“God is forgiving or we would not still be walking this world. But to be moral is not to need his divine forgiveness, I think.”

Thinking World Needs Stills Moral This World Divine Walking Forgiving

Book:Lord of Misrule: The Morganville Vampires

Source: Lord of Misrule: The Morganville Vampires

“While so much of our economic life is thriving, too much of our moral life is still stagnating. As a people, we need to reaffirm our faith.”

People Needs Stills Life Is Moral Too Much Economic Scary Moral Life

Author:Joe Lieberman

“I have characterized Ross as exemplifying an extreme position among theistic scientists. However, he is not so extreme as to promote the scientifically unsound notions of the young-Earth creationists and other anti-evolutionists ... They are so far off the scale that their scientific claims need not be taken seriously. Their distortions and misrepresentations of the scientific facts are not consistent with their self-righteous claims of acting to protect all that is good and moral.”

“If we empower ourselves with responsibility over our actions, responsibility over our destinies and responsibility for directing and maintaining and creating our own ethical and moral frameworks, which is the most important thing really isn’t it because perhaps the greatest insult to humanism is this idea that mankind needs a god in order to have a moral framework.”

Ifs Needs Important Ideas Action Order Responsibility Moral Destiny Mankind Creating Important Things Humanism Empowering Insult Ethical Our Destiny Maintaining Our Actions Framework

Author:Stephen Fry

“In an average moral universal society, good people will try to do the right thing, and psychotic people will do wicked things. But if you want to make good people do wicked things, you need them to be religious.”

People Ifs Want Needs Trying Religious Moral Universal Average Right Thing Wicked Good People Psychotic Wicked Things

Author:Bill Maher

“Even healthy families need outside sources of moral guidance to keep those tensions from imploding--and this means, among other things, a public philosophy of gender equality and concern for child welfare. When instead the larger culture aggrandizes wife beaters, degrades women or nods approvingly at child slappers, the family gets a little more dangerous for everyone, and so, inevitably, does the larger world.”

World Needs Mean Children Littles Doe Philosophy Culture Moral Wife Dangerous Source Healthy Concern Gender Welfare Guidance Tension Gender Equality Degrade Healthy Family Slappers

Author:Barbara Ehrenreich

“A man needs no arguments to make him discern and approve what is beautiful: it strikes at first sight, and attracts without a reason. And as this beauty is found in the shape and form of corporeal things, so also is there analogous to it a beauty of another kind, an order, a symmetry, and comeliness in the moral world. And as the eye perceiveth the one, so the mind doth by a certain interior sense perceive the other, which sense, talent, or faculty, is ever quickest and purest in the noblest minds.”

Source: Alciphron: Or, The Minute Philosopher. In Seven Dialogues Containing an Apology for the Christian Religion Against Those who are Called Free-thinkers

“I remain a religious agnostic, but, unlike most atheists, I not only am not hostile to traditional religion but consider it a highly valuable, not to say essential, social institution... I am convinced that the moral regeneration and repair of a frayed social fabric that this country so badly needs will not take place unless more people take their religion seriously.”

People Needs Country Christian Social Religious Moral Essentials Institutions Atheist Valuable Convinced Traditional Fabric Agnostic Hostile Regeneration Social Institutions

Book:Why America Needs Religion: Secular Modernity and Its Discontents

Source: Why America Needs Religion: Secular Modernity and Its Discontents

“As blacks, we need not be afraid that encouraging moral development, a conscience and guilt will prevent social action. Black children without the ability to feel a normal amount of guilt will victimize their parents, relatives and community first. They are unlikely to be involved in social action to improve the black community. Their self-centered personalities will cause them to look out for themselves without concern for others, black or white.”

“One hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war: something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved itself to be incompatible.”

Men Needs Doe War Self Spiritual Speak Social Moral Heat Realms Heroic Compatible

Author:William James

“Whatever the country, capitalist or socialist, man was everywhere crushed by technology, made a stranger to his own work, imprisoned, forced into stupidity. The evil all arose from the fact that he had increased his needs rather than limited them; . . . As long as fresh needs continued to be created, so new frustrations would come into being. When had the decline begun? The day knowledge was preferred to wisdom and mere usefulness to beauty. . . . Only a moral revolution - not a social or political revolution - only a moral revolution would lead man back to his lost truth.”

Source: Les Belles Images

“Morals are concerned with what aids or impedes the fulfillment of basic human needs.”

Needs Humans Moral Concerned Aids Fulfillment Human Needs Basic Human Needs

Author:Peggy Noonan

“I happen to believe that there are a lot of good poets around at present, but a poet like Alex Kuo, who possesses a highly developed moral sense and a bitter honesty, is rare at any time and especially in this time. We need him.”

Needs Believe Happens Moral Honesty Poet Bitter Alex

Author:Carolyn Kizer