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Morality Quotes

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Morality Quotes

“Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God... Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire.”

IfsWorldShouldHas BeensWarSoulReligionUniverseChristianityFireImpossibleBuddhismMoralityQuietAmbitionHatredSickInfiniteTyrannyLiberationBlissCrownsBurnedScentHeresyFuriousPersecutedHoundsExterminationAnestheticsSick World
Author:George Santayana
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“The purpose of a fishing trip is not to catch fish. Bringing home meat is important, but it is more symbolic than necessary, as the new morality of catch-and-release has shown. What is important is what happens between people on fishing trips, especially between uncles and nephews, fathers and sons, old men in general and young boys in particular, it is one of the few times men are together without women.”

PeopleMenImportantHomeHappensTogetherYoungPurposeFatherBoysSeaParticularSonMoralityRiversFishesBoatReleaseMeatLakesFishingOld ManUnclesSymbolicFather And SonNephew
Author:Paul G. Quinnett
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“Sentimentalising is anathema, as far as I am concerned. It leads you into ethical problems about violence and killing and eating meat. The whole world becomes topsy-survy if you impose moralities that were evolved within human society on what a blowfly or what a parasite does... there are lots of emotions you can deduce from an animal's behaviour that are correct, but when you start saying it's feeling guilty or thinking or a loved one or mourning, you must be very careful of those feelings.”

IfsThinkingWorldHumansDoeWholeFeelingsProblemAnimalEmotionViolenceTelevisionMoralityEatingConcernedKillingCarefulWhole WorldGuiltyMeatMourningEthicalLoved OnesBehaviourHuman SocietyParasitesEating MeatFeeling GuiltyAnathema
Author:David Attenborough
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“Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.”

WorldNeedsMadeWisdomPoliticsCommunityClassEconomyModernMoralityLimitsSlaverySlaveTechniqueMade ItLiberalismLeisurePrivilegedModern WorldPrerogative
Book:In Praise of Idleness
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“There is in the clergy of all Christian denominations a time-serving, cringing, subservient morality, as wide from the spirit of the gospel as it is from the intrepid assertion and vindication of truth.”

ChristianSpiritAtheismMoralityPositive AtheismWideServingAssertionClergyDenominationsSubservientVindicationChristian Denominations
Book:Diary, 1794-1845: American Diplomacy and Political, Social, and Intellectual Life from Washington to Polk
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“In England Giordano Bruno had given lectures on the plurality of worlds, and in that country had written, in Italian, his most important works. It added not a little to the exasperation against him, that he was perpetually declaiming against the insincerity, the impostures, of his persecutors - that wherever he went he found skepticism varnished over and concealed by hypocrisy; and that it was not against the belief of men, but against their pretended belief, that he was fighting; that he was struggling with an orthodoxy that had neither morality nor faith.”

MenWorldLittlesImportantCountryFightingFoundBeliefGivenStruggleWrittenAtheismMoralityEnglandPositive AtheismHypocrisyWorking ItItalianSkepticismLecturesOrthodoxyConcealedInsincerityImportant WorkExasperation
Author:John William Draper
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“The church has contributed nothing to civilization. It has progressed somewhat, and it has become a little more decent, in reflection of the movements of civilization that have taken place outside of the church and usually in the face of the strong opposition of the church. But the church has always resisted the process of civilization. It has struggled to the last ditch, by fair means and foul, to preserve as long as it could the vestiges of ancient and medieval theology, with all the puerile moralities and harsh customs and medieval styles of belief.”

MeanLittlesLongLastsFacesBeliefStrongProcessChurchTakenAtheismStyleMovementMoralityCivilizationReflectionFairsAncientTheologyPreservesDecentOppositionCustomsHarshMedievalFoul
Author:E. Haldeman-Julius
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“Many men without morals have attacked religion because it was contrary to their inclinations. Many wise men have despised it because it seemed to them ridiculous. Many persons have regarded it with indifference, because they have never felt its true disadvantages. But it is as a citizen that I attack it, because it seems to me harmful to the happiness of the state, hostile to the march of the mind of man, and contrary to sound morality, from which the interests of state policy can never be separated.”

MenMindPersonsStatesSeemsFeltSoundInterestMoralWiseAtheismPolicyCitizensMoralityPositive AtheismContraryRidiculousIndifferenceMarchHostileInclinationDisadvantagesDespised
Author:Baron d'Holbach
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“My chief aim was to combat the view that there can be no true morality without supernatural sanctions. So I argued at length that the social, or altruistic, impulses are the real source of morality, and that an ethic based on these impulses has far more claim on our allegiance than an ethic based on obedience to the commands of a God who created tapeworms and cancer-cells.”

RealSocialViewsAtheismSourceMoralityEthicsClaimsAimCancerPositive AtheismCommandChiefsCellsObedienceImpulseLengthCombatAllegianceSanctions
Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“To discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods. They need but common sense. They have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of the species.”

MenNeedsLooksInterestCommonPrinciplesVirtueAtheismObjectsMoralityMembersAdvantageSpeciesVicesObviousTheologyCommon SenseRevelationsInjury
Author:Jean Meslier
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“Through inculcating the notion that sacrifice is a virtue, Christianity has succeeded in convincing many people that misery incurred through sacrifice is a mark of virtue. Pain becomes the inignia of morality - and conversely, pleasure becomes the insignia of immorality. Christianity, therefore, does not say, "Go forth and be miserable." Rather, it says, "Go forth and practice the virtue of self-sacrifice." In practical terms, these commands are identical.”

PeopleDoeSelfPainTermPleasureChristianityPracticeVirtueSacrificeAtheismMoralityMarkMiseryNotionPositive AtheismPracticalsCommandMiserableConvincingIdenticalSelf SacrificeImmorality
Author:George H. Smith
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“What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory; and found it more convenient to indulge his depraved appetites, and pay an exorbitant price for absolution, than listen to the suggestions of reason, and work out his own salvation: in a word, was not the separation of religion from morality the work of the priests...?”

MenReasonFoundChurchDarkPayAtheismMoralitySalvationPropertyWork OutPositive AtheismSeparationSubstancePriestsAppetiteSuggestionsTormentIndulgeConvenientSecuredDepravedPurgatoryAbsolution
Book:The Vindications: The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman
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“Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods; religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors.”

MenWorldWonderAtheismDutyMoralityPositive AtheismTreatedNeglectVeilsOppressorsIncumbentsDens
Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
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“The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion. However valuable-even necessary-that may have been in enforcing good behavior on primitive peoples, their association is now counterproductive. Yet at the very moment when they should be decoupled, sanctimonious nitwits are calling for a return to morals based on superstition.”

ShouldMayHas BeensMomentsMoralMankindReturnMoralityCallingBehaviorTragedyValuableAssociationSuperstitionsPrimitiveCounterproductiveGood BehaviorSanctimoniousHijacking
Author:Arthur C. Clarke
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“Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth... Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves... Nevertheless... such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction... and any deeper meaning is illusory...”

ThinkingHandsFeetMoralitySurvivalEthicsAppreciateClaimsFoundationDeeperAidsNeighborTeethObjectivesNeverthelessAdaptationThyselfReproductionReferringIllusoryLove Thy NeighborHands And FeetAbove And BeyondDeeper Meaning
Author:Michael Ruse
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“it is not that religion is merely useless, it is mischievous. It is mischievous by its idle terrors; it is mischievous by its false morality; it is mischievous by its hypocrisy; by its fanaticism; by its dogmatism; by its threats; by its hopes; by its promises.”

MoralityPromiseThreatTerrorUselessHypocrisyIdleFanaticismDogmatismMischievous
Book:A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum
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“All religions begin with a revolt against morality, and perish when morality conquers them.”

ReligionMoralityConquerRevolt
Book:The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
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