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Morality Quotes

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Morality Quotes

“Most thoughtful people would agree that morality in the absence of policing is somehow more truly moral than the kind of false morality that vanishes as soon as the police go on strike or the spy camera is switched off, whether the spy camera is a real one monitored in the police station or an imaginary one in heaven.”

PeopleKindRealHeavenMoralGoes OnMoralityPoliceCamerasAgreeStrikesAbsenceThoughtfulStationsImaginarySpyReal Ones
Book:The God Delusion
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“The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced.”

WaySecretModernMoralityAnxietyIdealsRootsCurrentsTerrorNobleRussiaCommunismConsistentSovietDreadDisguiseAltruismLiteralEmbodimentIrrationalitySoviet Russia
Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It
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“We continually forget that the sphere of morals is the sphere of action, that speculation in regard to morality is but observation and must remain in the sphere of intellectual comment, that a situation does not really become moral until we are confronted with the question of what shall be done in a concrete case, and are obliged to act upon our theory.”

DoeDoneActionForgetSituationMoralCasesTheoryMoralityIntellectualRegardObservationCommentSpheresConcreteSpeculationObliged
Book:Democracy and Social Ethics
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“Our conceptions of morality, as all our other ideas, pass through a course of development; the difficulty comes in adjusting our conduct, which has become hardened into customs and habits, to these changing moral conceptions. When this adjustment is not made, we suffer from the strain and indecision of believing one hypothesis and acting upon another.”

BelieveMadeIdeasSufferingCoursesActingMoralDevelopmentHabitMoralityDifficultyCustomsConceptionStrainHypothesisAdjustmentIndecisionHardenedAdjusting
Book:Democracy and Social Ethics
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“Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.”

IfsGivingStillsFormLawPoliticalPassionPoliticsViewsEconomyEffectsInspireTaughtMoralityConflictImportanceSlaveryPoint Of ViewOppressionTragicMonopolySanctionsExaggeratedPerversionRobberyPolitical EconomySupposition
Author:Frederic Bastiat
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“Feuerbach ... recognizes ... "even love, in itself the truest, most inward sentiment, becomes an obscure, illusory one through religiousness, since religious love loves man only for God's sake, therefore loves man only apparently, but in truth God only." Is this different with moral love? Does it love the man, this man for this man's sake, or for morality's sake, for Man's sake, and so-for homo homini Deus-for God's sake?”

MenDoeDifferentReligiousMoralHe ManMoralitySakeSentimentsInwardObscureTruestIllusoryReligious Love
Author:Max Stirner
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“Blessed be the inventor of photography! I set him above even the inventor of chloroform! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything else that has ''cast up'' in my time or is like to -- this art by which even the ''poor'' can possess themselves of tolerable likenesses of their absent dear ones. And mustn't it be acting favorably on the morality of the country?”

ArtCountrySufferingHumanityGivenPleasurePoorActingMoralityPhotographyBlessedDearCastsMy TimeAbsentInventorTolerableDear OnesChloroform
Author:Jane Welsh Carlyle
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“Since fresh examples and proofs could always be found of the alleged relation between guilt and punishment: if you behave in such and such a way, it will go badly with you. Now, as it generally does go badly, the allegation was constantly confirmed; and thus popular morality, a pseudo- science on a level with popular medicine, continually gained ground.”

IfsWayDoeFoundLevelsExampleMoralityRelationMedicineGuiltProofPunishmentBehavePseudoAllegations
Book:Friedrich Nietzsche (English Edition)
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“What [Nietzsche] calls slave morality is to him purely spite-morality; and this spite-morality gave new names to all ideals. Thus impotence, which offers no reprisal, became goodness; craven baseness became humility; submission to him who was feared became obedience; inability to assert one's self became reluctance to assert one's self, became forgiveness, love of one's enemies. Misery became a distinction”

SelfNamesEnemyHumilityMoralityOffersGoodnessIdealsMiserySlaveObedienceSpiteDistinctionSubmissionInabilityImpotenceReluctanceBasenessForgiveness LoveReprisal
Book:Friedrich Nietzsche (English Edition)
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“Society mediates between the extremes of, on the one hand, intolerably strict morality and, on the other, dangerously anarchic permissiveness through an unspoken agreement whereby we are given leave to bend the rules of the strictest morality, provided we do so quietly and discreetly. Hypocrisy is the grease that keeps society functioning in an agreeable way, by allowing for human fallibility and reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable human needs for order and pleasure.”

WayNeedsHumansHandsOrderGivenPleasureMoralityExtremesHypocrisyAgreementAllowingStrictUnspokenHuman NeedsGreaseFallibility
Author:Janet Malcolm
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“The silliest and most tendentious of baseball writing tries to wrest profundity from the spectacle of grown men hitting a ball with a stick by suggesting linkages between the sport and deep issues of morality, parenthood, history, lost innocence, gentleness, and so on, seemingly ad infinitum . (The effort reeks of silliness because baseball is profound all by itself and needs no excuses; people who don't know this are not fans and are therefore unreachable anyway.”

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Book:Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History
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“The relations between parents and children are certainly not only those of constraint. There is spontaneous mutual affection, which from the first prompts the child to acts of generosity and even of self-sacrifice, to very touching demonstrations which are in no way prescribed. And here no doubt is the starting point for that morality of good which we shall see developing alongside of the morality of right or duty, and which in some persons completely replaces it.”

WayFirstsChildrenPersonsSelfParentDoubtSacrificeDutyMoralityRelationStartingAffectionDevelopingGenerosityNo DoubtMutualTouchingSpontaneousDemonstrationConstraintsSelf SacrificeStarting PointPromptsChildren And Parents
Book:The Moral Judgement of the Child
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“That the religious right completely took over the word Christian is a given. At one time, phrases such as Christian charity and Christian tolerance were used to denote kindness and compassion. To perform a "Christian" act meant an act of giving, of acceptance, of toleration. Now, Christian is invariably linked to right-wing conservative political thought -- Christian nation, Christian morality, Christian values, Christian family.”

GivingReasonChristianPoliticalUsedReligionValuesGivenNationsReligiousFreedomCompassionLibertyKindnessAcceptanceMoralityWingsCharityConservativeTolerancePhrasesOne TimeAgnosticLinkedRight WingKindness And CompassionTolerationChristian NationChristian FamilyChristian MoralityChristian ValuesConservative Political
Author:Peter McWilliams
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“The preceding criticism justifies the following definition of the entire human: human existence as the life of "unmotivated" celebration, celebration in all meaning of the word: laughter, dancing, orgy, the rejection of subordination, and sacrifice that scornfully puts aside any consideration of ends, property, and morality.”

HumansEndsExistenceSacrificeMoralityLaughterCriticismDancingPropertyDefinitionsFollowingRejectionConsiderationJustifyCelebrationHuman ExistenceSubordinationUnmotivated
Author:Georges Bataille
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“Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”

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Book:A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
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“THERE is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence. Such topics, therefore, ought entirely to be forborne; as serving nothing to the discovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist odious.”

PersonsCertainCommonOpinionDangerousOughtMoralityDiscoveryConsequencePhilosophicalMethodReasoningServingAbsurdityTopicsHypothesisDisputesEndeavourPretenceAntagonistRefutation
Book:Essays Moral, Political, and Literary
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“Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction.”

ShouldWritingPersonsMatterStatesNationsUnitedUnited StatesEffectsMoralityStandardsAssumingInternationalConvictionAssumptionJudgedHabitualSubversiveRhetorical
Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports
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“For John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he's dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it's like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they're about a mile underground. He'd have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd.”

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Author:Paul Keating
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“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.”

MenWorldHumansLongWarSelfFormLawLyingTermInterestCommunityMoralHuman NatureMoralityJudgmentMen And WomenSilentStakesSelf InterestElementalsMoral JudgmentCharadesWorlds Apart
Book:Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations
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“The threat of mutually assured destruction worked for the United States during the Cold War because it had proved its willingness to drop nuclear bombs on enemy cities at the end of World War II. It might work less well for Israel, because the Israeli Air Force has never deliberately targeted a large civilian population center, and its leaders have said its morality would not permit it do so.”

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Author:Alan Dershowitz
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“Sport carries on without deviation the mechanical tradition of furnishing relief and distraction to the worker after he has finished his work proper so that he is at no time independent of one technique or another. In sport the citizen of the technical society finds the same spirit, criteria, morality, actions and objectives in short, all the technical laws and customs which he encounters in office or factory.”

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Author:Jacques Ellul
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