Quotessence
Home / Topics / Morality Quotes

Morality Quotes

Browse 3758 quotes about Morality.

Related topics

MoralMenIfsEthicsPeopleReligionWorldHumansLawThinkingMayShouldVirtueDoeValuesPrinciplesMeanWayGivingBelieveSelfReasonKnowsEvilGovernmentChristianWellsIndividualReligiousActionNeedsFirstsImmoralArtHumanityForceSocialNationsFormMatterStatesLibertyStandardsMindWantHas BeensTwoKindRealAtheismImmoralityInterestCharacterChildrenCodeSpiritualBasesPoliticalFactsIdeasIntegrityMadeTryingDutyLiteraturePersonsCultureBeliefFeelsLyingPhilosophyCertainHelpingWholeCommonEthicalFoundationHuman BeingsOrderAgeDifferentFoundHighestImportantModernSeemsSufferingUseWarBehaviorChristianityConscienceCountryJusticeMotherhoodRealitySaidChoicesFeelingsLifemore

Morality Quotes

“Lawyers, before any other group, must continue to point out how the system is really working-how it actually affects real people. They must constantly demonstrate to courts and legislatures alike the tragic results of legal nonintervention. They must highlight how legal doctrines no longer bear any relation to reality, whether in landlord and tenant law, holder in due course law, or any other law. In sum, lawyers must bring real morality into the legal consciousness”

PeopleRealRealityLawCoursesResultsConsciousnessGroupsBearsMoralityEthicsRelationCourtDuesLawyerDoctrineTragicLegislatureHighlightsLandlordTenantsLegal Ethics
Author:William J. Brennan
Create image

“Art itself is essentially ethical; because every true work of art must have a beauty or grandeur of some kind, and beauty and grandeur cannot be comprehended by the beholder except through the moral sentiment. The eye is only a witness; it is not a judge. The mind judges what the eye reports to it; therefore, whatever elevates the moral sentiment to the contemplation of beauty and grandeur is in itself ethical.”

MindKindArtEyeMoralJudgingMoralityEthicsWitnessContemplationReportsWorks Of ArtSentimentsEthicalGrandeurBeholderVery True
Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Create image

“As the dominant social ethic changed from a religious to a secular one, the problem of heresy disappeared, and the problem of madness arose and became of great social significance. In the next chapter I shall examine the creation of social deviants, and shall show that as formerly priests had manufactured heretics, so physicians, as the new guardians of social conduct and morality, began to manufacture madmen.”

ShowsProblemNextSocialReligiousCreationChangedMoralityEthicsMadnessPriestsSignificanceChaptersSecularPhysiciansDominantGuardianHeresyMadmenHereticDeviantsNext Chapter
Author:Thomas Szasz
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“As to ethics, unfortunately, we are still at sea. We never did have any popular base for what little ethics we knew, except the religious theories, and now that our faith is shaken in those theories we cannot account for ethics at all. It is no wonder we behave badly, we are literally ignorant of the laws of ethics, which is the simplest of sciences, the most necessary, the most continuously needed. The childish misconduct of our 'revolted youth' is quite equaled by that of older people, and neither young nor old seem to have any understanding of the reasons why conduct is 'good' or 'bad.”

PeopleLittlesStillsReasonSeemsLawYoungUnderstandingReligiousWonderSeaYouthTheoryNeededMoralityEthicsAccountsIgnorantReason WhyBehaveSimplestOlder PeopleMisconduct
Book:The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography
Create image

“What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity, high-mindeness, personal dignity, even the sense of honour, is derived from the purely human, not the religious part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, is that of obedience.”

HumansLittlesIdeasChristianReligiousAtheismModernSourceHonorMoralityStandardsEthicsDignityPositive AtheismObligationRecognitionObedienceGreekPrivate LifeMagnanimityPersonal Dignity
Author:John Stuart Mill
Create image

“Ethics and power are separate. Ethics and morality. I think life would be miserable if there weren't some kind of code that people operated by, but history is full of many, many people who have gotten power by very unethical means, and people who were very ethical, who get no power, people who have the most brilliant, lovely, wonderful, nice intentions and bring about horrible things in the world because they don't know how to play the power game.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsWorldKindMeanPlayWould BeGamesKnow HowNiceWonderfulMoralityEthicsIntentionBrilliantLovelyHorribleMiserableCodeEthicalHorrible ThingsUnethical
Author:Robert Greene
Create image

“I care not for the theoretical symmetry and impregnable logic of your moral code, I care not for the hoary respectability and traditional mysticisms of your theological institutions, I care not for the beauty and solemnity of your rituals and religious ceremonies, I care not even for the reasonableness and unimpeachable fairness of your social ethics,--if it does not turn out better, nobler, truer, men and women,--if it does not add to the world's stock of valuable souls,--if it does not give us a sounder, healthier, more reliable product from this great factory of men--I will have none of it.”

IfsMenWorldGivingDoeSoulCareReligionTurnsSocialReligiousMoralProductsMoralityEthicsMen And WomenLogicInstitutionsAddValuableTraditionalCodeMysticismRitualFactoriesFairnessI CareCeremonyTheoreticalTheologicalSymmetryRespectabilityMoral CodeSolemnityReasonablenessSounder
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
Create image

“Does history warrant the conclusion that religion is necessary to morality - that a natural ethic is too weak to withstand the savagery that lurks under civilization and emerges in our dreams, crimes and wars? ... There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”

DoeWarDreamReligionNaturalMoralCrimeExampleMoralityCivilizationEthicsWeakAidsSignificantConclusionOur TimeOur DreamsMaintainingWarrantsSavageryMoral Life
Book:The Lessons of History
Create image

“A choice is the root of all morality. Without choice, one can have no moral code. In a vacuum bereft of alternatives, there can be no values. And without values, there can be no reason for a code of ethics. What gives our lives meaning is which alternatives we choose. If we have no options, if we can take but one path, we are by definition slaves.”

IfsGivingReasonValuesChoicesMoralPathOur LivesMoralityEthicsRootsSlaveDefinitionsAlternativesCodeMeaning Of LifeNo ReasonVacuumsLife MeansMoral CodeBereftCode Of Ethics
Author:Dave Galanter
Create image