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Morality Quotes

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Morality Quotes

“The "Lucifer Effect" describes the point in time when an ordinary, normal person first crosses the boundary between good and evil to engage in an evil action. It represents a transformation of human character that is significant in its consequences. Such transformations are more likely to occur in novel settings, in "total situations," where social situational forces are sufficiently powerful to overwhelm, or set aside temporally, personal attributes of morality, compassion, or sense of justice and fair play.”

FirstsHumansPersonsPlayCharacterActionEvilForceSocialJusticePowerfulCompassionSituationNovelEffectsMoralityNormalOrdinaryConsequenceFairsCrossesTransformationSignificantBoundariesSettingSettingsGood And EvilAttributesLuciferFair Play
Author:Philip Zimbardo
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“Stirner and Nietzsche ... reveal how prone morality is to being used as a means of rationalization, a cloak for concealing violent and brutish passions, and making their sadistic expression a virtue.”

MeanUsedPassionVirtueExpressionMoralityViolentCloaksSadisticConcealing
Book:Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky
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“Mr. J.S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, "Utilitarianism," of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality," but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man?”

IfsMenShouldReasonFeelingsBeliefSpeakSocialNaturalMy OwnAnimalPowerfulMoralMoralityPagesEthicsBasesProfoundSentimentsThinkerVentureInnateHesitationMillsUtilitarianUtilitarianism
Book:The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
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“Mass democracy, mass morality and the mass media thrive independently of the individual, who joins them only at the cost of at least a partial perversion of his instincts and insights. He pays for his social ease with what used to be called his soul - his discriminations, his uniqueness, his psychic energy, his self.”

SoulSelfUsedIndividualEnergySocialPayDemocracyMediaMoralityCostMassInstinctInsightDiscriminationUsed To BeEaseThriveUniquenessPsychicsPerversionMass Media
Book:The Savage God: A Study of Suicide
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“The acceptability of birth control has always depended on a morality that separates sex from reproduction. In the nineteenth century, when the birth control movement began, such a separation was widely considered immoral. The eventual widespread public acceptance of birth control required a major reorientation of sexual values.”

ValuesSexCenturyMovementAcceptanceBirthMoralityMajorsSeparationImmoralNineteenth CenturyReproductionBirth Control
Book:The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America
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“The garden [of Eden] is the realm of pure beauty from which man is expelled when he becomes interested in ethics, in the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The return into paradise, the homecoming, depends on him penetrating the veils of morality to glimpse again the lineaments of lost beauty.”

MenEvilLostTreeDependsReturnMoralityPureEthicsGardenFruitRealmsParadiseGood And EvilGlimpseVeilsEdenHomecomingGarden Of EdenTree Of Knowledge
Author:John Carroll
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“Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality's laws - poorly understood and applied - are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.”

PersonsMomentsLawPassionSpeakCausesPleasureResponsibilityFoolMoralityUnderstoodEmbraceDistanceGuiltSensesConquestParadesBannerShiverGood CausesIrreverent
Author:C.P. Cavafy
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“The ruling British elite are like animals--not only in their morality, but in their outlook on knowledge. They are clever animals, who are masters of the wicked nature of their own species, and recognize ferally the distinctions of the hated human species. Nonetheless, obsessively dedicated to being such animals, they can not [sic] assimilate those qualities unique to true human beings.”

HumansHuman BeingsAnimalQualityMastersMoralityUniqueSpeciesBritishCleverHatedWickedDistinctionDedicatedElitesCan NotRulingOutlookHuman Species
Book:The Secrets Known Only To The Inner Elites
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“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.”

IfsNeedsHeartSelfStatesHumanityFightingInterestCommunityCommonBrainMoralPrinciplesStruggleArmsMoralityWeaponsCommon GoodMoral PrinciplesCommon Interests
Author:Joseph Alexander Leighton
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“Darwinism undermined traditional morality and the value of human life. Then, evolutionary progress became the new moral imperative. This aided the advance of eugenics, which was overtly founded on Darwinian principles. Some eugenicists began advocating euthanasia and infanticide for the disabled. On a parallel track, some prominent Darwinists argued that human racial competition and war is part of the Darwinian struggle for existence. Hitler imbibed these social Darwinist ideas, blended in virulent anti-Semitism, and--there you have it: Holocaust”

HumansIdeasWarValuesSocialExistenceMoralPrinciplesStruggleProgressMoralityCompetitionTrackTraditionalHuman LifeHolocaustParallelsImperativesDisabledEugenicsAdvocatingProminentAnti SemitismDarwinismEuthanasiaInfanticideStruggle For ExistenceValue Of Human Life
Author:Richard Weikart
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“The first thing to get clear about Christian morality between man and man is that in this department Christ did not come to teach any brand new morality. The Golden Rule of the New Testament (Do as you would be done by) is a summing up of what everyone, at bottom, had always known to be right.”

MenFirstsDoneWould BeChristianChristKnownTeachClearMoralityBottomGoldenBrandsDepartmentTestamentNew TestamentGolden RuleBrand NewChristian MoralitySumming Up
Book:Mere Christianity: a revised and enlarged edition, with a new introduction, of the three books, The case for Christianity, Christian behaviour, and Beyond personality
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“If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven.”

IfsKnowsBelieveWellsBookMatterChristianReligionHeavenOpinionFieldsMoralityEternalFoolishKingdomsResurrectionMistakenMaintainingEternal LifeKingdom Of Heaven
Book:Genesi Ad Litteram
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“If the knowledge of torture of others makes you sick, it is a case of sympathy... It can be argued that behaviour based on sympathy is in an important sense egoistic, for one is oneself pleased at others' pleasure and pained at others' pain, and the pursuit of one's own utility may thus be helped by sympathetic action.”

IfsMayImportantActionPainReligionPleasureCasesMoralitySickOneselfPursuitTortureBehaviourUtilitySympatheticPain And Pleasure
Book:Choice, Welfare and Measurement
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“I've always assumed that every time a child is born, the Divine reenters the world. Okay? That's the meaning of the Christmas story. And every time that child's purity is corrupted by society, that's the meaning of the Crucifixion story. Your man Jesus stands for that child, that pure spirit, and as its surrogate, he's being born and put to death again and again, over and over, every time we inhale and exhale, not just at the vernal equinox and on the twenty-fifth of December.”

MenWorldChildrenStoriesSpiritReligionJesusBornDivineMoralityPureOkayPurityAgain And AgainDecemberCrucifixionInhaleSurrogatesEquinox
Author:Tom Robbins
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“There is one god, greatest among gods and men, who bears no similarity to humans either in shape or thought... but humans believe that the gods are born like themselves, and that the gods wear clothes and have bodies like humans and speak in the same way... but if cows and horses or lions had hands or could draw with the hands and manufacture the things humans can make, then horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, cows like cows, and they would make the gods' bodies resemble those which each kind of animal had itself.”

IfsMenWayBelieveHumansKindBodyHandsFormReligionSpeakBornAnimalBearsMoralityShapesClothesDrawsHorseLionsCowsSimilarity
Author:Xenophanes
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“The fact is that there is a profound spiritual hunger in the western world which, for a variety of reasons, its church is no longer able to assuage. So a book which suggests that there is a spiritual significance to the Christian story but that this has been suppressed by the church undoubtedly appeals to those who are anxious to square this circle.”

WorldHas BeensBookReasonFactsStoriesAbleChristianSpiritualReligionChurchMoralityProfoundWesternHungerCirclesVarietyAppealsSignificanceSquaresAnxiousWestern WorldSpiritual HungerProfound Spiritual
Author:Melanie Phillips
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“The more we study mind and matter scientifically the more we see that all things follow a natural sequence, a sequence as liable to work for our disadvantage as for our advantage. It flows like the water of a river, it falls like rain, it is as impartial as the sea. It is as innocent of malice as it is of compassion.”

MindMatterReligionFallWaterNaturalCompassionStudySeaMoralityAdvantageRainFlowAll ThingsRiversInnocentSequenceMaliceDisadvantagesLiableMind And Matter
Book:Llewelyn Powys: A Selection from His Writings
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