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Moral Quotes

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Moral Quotes

“Moral decay first hampers and then strangles honest government, regular commerce, and even the ability to take genuine pleasure in the goods of this world. Compulsion is applied from above as self-discipline relaxes below, and the last liberties expire under the weight of a unitary state.... Since religion has lost its empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary that divided good from evil is overthrown; kings and nations are guided by chance and none can say where are the natural limits of despotism and the bound of license.”

“Self-discover is not as someone would have us think, a heavy, awesome, moral process where everyone sits around and frowns. As you progress towards enlightenment, you become funny.”

Thinking Self Process Moral Progress Enlightenment Heavy

Author:Frederick Lenz

“America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.”

People Has Beens Self America Certain Freedom Moral Greatness Commitment Destructive Self Destructive

Author:John W. Gardner

“Women particularly can dress modestly and in the process contribute to their own self respect and to the moral purity of men. In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for.”

Men Ends Self Process Moral Type Dresses Purity Self Respect Moral Purity

Author:Tad R. Callister

“Human attempts to construct moral order are always precarious: If righteousness too often leads to self-righteousness, the demand for justice can lead to one guillotine or another.”

Ifs Humans Self Order Justice Moral Demand Righteousness Constructs Precarious Self Righteousness Guillotine

Book:Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists

Source: Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists

“Self-pity? I see no moral objections to it, the smell drives people away, but that's a practical objection, and occasionally an advantage.”

People Self Moral Advantage Smell Practicals Pity Self Pity Objections

Author:E. M. Forster

“I wish more of us could understand that our increasing isolation, no matter how much it seems to express pride and self-affirmation, is not the answer to our problems. Rather, the answer is a revival of our ancient commitment to God, who rules over all the peoples of the world and exalts no one over any other, and to the moral and spiritual values which were once legendary in America. We must reach out our hand in friendship both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.”

“The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced - that without intelligence we should be brutes - but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.”

“The idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)

“Wherever moral ambition exists, there right exists. And moral ambition itself must be presumed present in subconsciousness, even when the conscious self seems to reject it, so long as society has resources for bringing it into action; in much the same way that the life-saver presumes life to exist in the drowned man until he has exhausted his resources for recovering respiration.”

Men Way Long Self Seems Action Moral Ambition Conscious Resources Rejects Exhausted Recovering Respiration

Author:William Ernest Hocking

“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

“For as long as men and women have talked about war, they have talked about it in terms of right and wrong. And for almost as long, some among them have derided such talk, called it a charade, insisted that war lies beyond (or beneath) moral judgment. War is a world apart, where life itself is at stake, where human nature is reduced to its elemental forms, where self-interest and necessity prevail. Here men and women do what they must to save themselves and their communities, and morality and law have no place. Inter arma silent leges: in time of war the law is silent.”

Source: Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations

“There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right.”

Self Government Ability Liberty Moral Discipline Self Control Self Discipline Grounded Self-government Discipline And Self Control

Author:Alan Keyes

“The enemies of Christ ... could not bear his independence; his "Give the emperor that which is the emperor's" showed a contempt for the affairs of state and its politics for the moral order that their self-respect would not let them tolerate.”

Giving Self States Order Christ Moral Enemy Bears Independence Affair Self Respect Contempt Tolerate Emperor

Author:John Carroll

“Manner and morals have improved, improved wages and world travel during the war have had effect, and the farm labourer now is an intelligent, self respecting workman, on a level at least with the town artisan. The village rustic of the past no longer exists outside of the comic papers.”

Source: The Peverel papers: nature notes written in Liphoo, Hampshire, 1921-1927

“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

“Changing ideas is a strain not to be lightly incurred, particularly when these ideas are intimately related to one's self-esteem ... men have elaborated an explanation for their situation in life... Their rationales are endowed with moral qualities.”

Men Ideas Self Quality Situation Moral Atheism Self Esteem Positive Atheism Esteem Explanation Related Strain Rationale Situations In Life

Author:Robert E Lane

“Self-righteousness and presumptive moral judgments pose a great danger in the political arena. To become convinced of the divine infallibility of one's personal predilections on a secular political issue is to play God, to assume to oneself the attributes of deity. It cultivates an arrogant intolerance of dissenting viewpoints and relegates one's political adversaries to the category of evil per se.”

“I am a political animal, because for God's sakes I think "We The People" is a job. I think experienced self government demands on all levels - intellectual, moral, historical, and spiritual level. We are supposed to be engaged and give directions to our elected employees.”

People Thinking Giving Self Government Jobs Spiritual Political Animal Levels Moral Demand Intellectual Historical Sake Supposed To Be Engaged Employee Self-government Political Animals

Author:Ted Nugent

“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

“The idea of duty--that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self--is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life.”

Ideas Self Animal Moral Duty Mere Satisfaction Recognition Animal Life Moral Life

Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)

“Moral epochs have their course as well as the seasons. We can no more hold them fast than we can hold sun, moon, and stars. Our faults perpetually return upon us; and herein lies the subtlest difficulty of self-knowledge.”

Wells Self Lying Courses Stars Moral Sun Return Moon Seasons Difficulty Faults Self Knowledge Moon And Stars Sun Moon Sun Moon And Stars

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“It's odd how a person always arouses admiration for his moral qualities among the relatives of another with whom he has sexual relations. Physical love, so unjustifiably decried, makes everyone show, down to the least detail, all he has of goodness and self-sacrifice, so that he shines even in the eyes of those nearest to him.”

Love Persons Self Shows Eye Quality Moral Sacrifice Goodness Relation Shining Details Odd Admiration Self Sacrifice

Author:Marcel Proust

“Fantasy is a literature particularly useful for embodying and examining the real difference between good and evil. In an America where our reality may seem degraded to posturing patriotism and self-righteous brutality, imaginative literature continues to question what heroism is, to examine the roots of power, and to offer moral alternatives. Imagination is the instrument of ethics. There are many metaphors besides battle, many choices besides war, and most ways of doing good do not, in fact, involve killing anybody. Fanstasy is good at thinking about those other ways.”

“The early symptoms of the disease [California Curse], which break out almost on arrival in Hollywood, are a sense of exaggerated self-importance and self-centeredness which naturally alienates all old friends. Next comes a great desire for and belief in the importance of money above all else, a loss of the normal sense of humor and proportion and finally, in extreme cases, the abandonment of all previous standards of moral value.”

“There is nothing so depressing as a constant contemplation of one's self, and the greatest moral cowardice in the world's opinion comes from consulting one's own personal convenience.”

World Self Moral Opinion Constant Contemplation Cowardice Depressing Convenience Consulting

Author:Marie Corelli

“If you think that you are where you are just because you worked hard, it is easy to become self-righteous and make classist moral judgments about others.”

Ifs Thinking Self Hard Easy Moral Judgment Where You Are Righteous Self Righteous Moral Judgment

Book:Class and feminism: a collection of essays from the Furies

Source: Class and feminism: a collection of essays from the Furies

“There is seemingly no biological benefit to acting with conscience; if there were, only moral individuals would survive and procreate. Sadly, we know that's not true. The benefit of conscience is that you won't suffer guilt (private) or shame (public), and that by your own self-imposed definition, you are a moral human, a special kind of animal who takes unique pride in elevating him/herself above the termites.”

Source: How Could You Do That?!: Abdication of Character, Courage, Consci

“I did not imagine that pregnant women were 'naturally' any more sensitive or exalted than people in any other condition; only it seemed as if - perhaps because we are in such a twilight state, a melting down and reconstituting of the self - there was more opportunity to hear strains from what must be the other side, the moral music of the sphere.”

People Ifs Self States Opportunity Sides Moral Imagine Conditions Down And Sensitive Pregnancy Spheres Twilight Imagine That Pregnant Strain Melting Exalted Pregnant Women

Book:Misconceptions

Source: Misconceptions

“My research suggests that men and women may speak different languages that they assume are the same, using similar words to encode disparate experiences of self and social relationships. Because these languages share an overlapping moral vocabulary, they contain a propensity for systematic mistranslation.”

Men May Different Self Speak Language Social Moral Share Research Men And Women Assuming Vocabulary Systematic Propensity Different Languages Overlapping Social Relationships

Book:In a Different Voice

Source: In a Different Voice

“Like so many other recovered alcoholics, I am to this day bewildered that it took so long for me to understand that there was no such animal as 'social drinking' for me; that it had nothing to do with my willpower or self-respect or moral fiber, that it was a simple biochemical intolerance to a drug.”

Long Self Social Simple Animal Moral Drug Drinking Self Respect This Day Intolerance Willpower Alcoholism Alcoholics Fiber Bewildered Moral Fiber

Book:The Quality of Mercy

Source: The Quality of Mercy

“If man do not find in himself the required (or wished, or wanted, - "voulue", Fr.) force to accomplish his moral aspirations, he can try to purt himself in the conditions suitable to assist (or promote, or further, -"favoriser", Fr.) his self-control.”

Ifs Men Trying Self Wanted Force Moral Conditions Accomplish Aspiration Self Control Suitable

Author:African Spir

“It must not be supposed that happiness will demand many or great possessions; for self-sufficiency does not depend on excessive abundance, nor does moral conduct, and it is possible to perform noble deeds even without being ruler of land and sea: one can do virtuous acts with quite moderate resources. This may be clearly observed in experience: private citizens do not seem to be less but more given to doing virtuous actions than princes and potentates. It is sufficient then if moderate resources are forthcoming; for a life of virtuous activity will be essentially a happy life.”

“Bill Clinton was not a symbol. People did not invest in him their idea of what America should be or, worse, their pride in what they thought America had become. There was no great moral self-congratulation in having elected a president from Arkansas.”

People Should Ideas Self America President Moral Pride Bills Clinton Symbols Congratulations Arkansas

Author:Charlie Pierce

“I think that we've made great moral progress in the second half of the 20th century in many respects, and particularly in relation to human rights but I think that we are losing sight of some of the values of concern for others, and self-respect and respect for others.”

Thinking Humans Made Self Values Half Moral Rights Progress Century Losing Concern Sight Relation Human Rights Self Respect 20th Century Respecting Others Concern For Others

Author:Alexander McCall Smith

“I would define morality as enlightened self-interest...That old Platonic ideal that there are certain pure moral forms just isn't where we are.”

Self Form Certain Interest Moral Morality Pure Ideals Manners Enlightened Self Interest Platonic

Author:Andrew Young

“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.”

“You cannot have a boundary-less existence, because your neighbor has his own boundaries, and who is going to give you the ethics between the two boundaries? If there is no objective moral law, relativism will take hold, and relativism ultimately will lead to self-destruction.”

Ifs Giving Two Self Law Existence Moral Ethics Destruction Neighbor Boundaries Objectives Self Destruction Relativism Moral Law

Author:Ravi Zacharias

“Our ego ideal is precious to us because it repairs a loss of our earlier childhood, the loss of our image of self as perfect and whole, the loss of a major portion of our infantile, limitless, ain't-I-wonderful narcissism which we had to give up in the face of compelling reality. Modified and reshaped into ethical goals and moral standards and a vision of what at our finest we might be, our dream of perfection lives on--our lost narcissism lives on--in our ego ideal.”

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“Though they themselves might be as surprised as their parents and teachers to hear it said, adolescents--these poignantly thin- skinned and vulnerable, passionate and impulsive, starkly sexual and monstrously self-absorbed creatures--are, in fact, avid seekers of moral authenticity. They wish above all to achieve some realistic power over the real world in which they live while at the same time remaining true to their values and ideals.”

“Wherever the State touches the personal life of the infant, the child, the youth, or the aged, helpless, defective in mind, body or moral nature, there the State enters "woman's peculiar sphere," her sphere of motherly succor and training, her sphere of sympathetic and self-sacrificing ministration to individual lives.”

“Fear, coercion, punishment, are the masculine remedies for moral weakness, but statistics show their failure for centuries. Why not change the system and try the education of the moral and intellectual faculties, cheerful surroundings, inspiring influences? Everything in our present system tends to lower the physical vitality, the self-respect, the moral tone, and to harden instead of reforming the criminal.”

Source: Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897

“Each man's private conscience ought to be a nice little self-registering thermometer: he ought to carry his moral code incorruptibly and explicitly within himself, and not care what the world thinks. The mass of human beings, however, are not made that way; and many people have been saved from crime or sin by the simple dislike of doing things they would not like to confess.”

People Thinking Men World Way Humans Littles Has Beens Made Self Care Human Beings Sin Simple Moral Nice Crime Ought Morality Mass Conscience Saved Code Dislike Moral Code Thermometers

Book:Modes and Morals

Source: Modes and Morals

“... the self respect of individuals ought to make them demand of their leaders conformity with an agreed-upon code of ethics and moral conduct.”

Self Individual Leadership Leader Moral Ought Morality Demand Respect Ethics Code Self Respect Conformity Ethics And Morals Code Of Ethics

Author:Mary Barnett Gilson

“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.”

“The child's personality is a product of slow gradual growth. His nervous system matures by stages and natural sequences. He sits before he stands; he babbles before he talks; he fabricates before he tells the truth; he draws a circle before he draws a square; he is selfish before he is altruistic; he is dependent on others before he achieves dependence on self. All of his abilities, including his morals, are subject to laws of growth. The task of child care is not to force him into a predetermined pattern but to guide his growth.”

Source: Infant and Child in the Culture of Today: The Guidance of Development in Home and Nursery School (From the Former Clinic of Child Development, School of Medicine at Yale University)

“If you're a teacher you have to teach the curriculum, all that stuff, you have to teach morals, you have to teach values, and you have to teach, all-importantly, self-control. Because a lot of kids don't have it.”

Ifs Self Kids Values Stuff Moral Teach Teacher Self Control Curriculum

Author:Tony Danza

“Is self-interest a bad thing? We want our leaders to be pure and good, but at the same time we want them to be effective, and to be effective you often have to be ruthless and not bound by ideology or the same morals that we pretend to hold ourselves to.”

Want Self Interest Leader Moral Pure Bounds Ideology Bad Things Self Interest Ruthless

Author:Beau Willimon

“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

“Multiculturalism is a campaign to lower America's moral status by defining the American experience is terms of myriad repressionsand their victims. By rewriting history, and by using name calling ("Racist! Sexist! Homophobe!") to inhibit debate, multiculturalists cultivate grievances, self pity and claims to entitlements arising from victimization.”