Quotessence
Home / Topics / Morality Quotes

Morality Quotes

Browse 3758 quotes about Morality.

Related topics

MoralMenIfsEthicsPeopleReligionWorldHumansLawThinkingMayShouldVirtueDoeValuesPrinciplesMeanWayGivingBelieveSelfReasonKnowsEvilGovernmentChristianWellsIndividualReligiousActionNeedsFirstsImmoralArtHumanityForceSocialNationsFormMatterStatesLibertyStandardsMindWantHas BeensTwoKindRealAtheismImmoralityInterestCharacterChildrenCodeSpiritualBasesPoliticalFactsIdeasIntegrityMadeTryingDutyLiteraturePersonsCultureBeliefFeelsLyingPhilosophyCertainHelpingWholeCommonEthicalFoundationHuman BeingsOrderAgeDifferentFoundHighestImportantModernSeemsSufferingUseWarBehaviorChristianityConscienceCountryJusticeMotherhoodRealitySaidChoicesFeelingsLifemore

Morality Quotes

“Jew and Gentile are two worlds, between you Gentiles and us Jews there lies an unbridgeable gulf...There are two life forces in the world Jewish and Gentile...I do not believe that this primal difference between Gentile and Jew is reconcilable...The difference between us is abysmal...You might say: 'Well, let us exist side by side and tolerate each other. We will not attack your morality, nor you ours.' But the misfortune is that the two are not merely different; they are opposed in mortal enmity. No man can accept both, or, accepting either, do otherwise than despise the other.”

MenWorldBelieveWellsTwoDifferentMightLyingForceSidesDifferencesAcceptingMoralityJewMortalsMisfortunesDespiseToleratePrimalEnmityTwo WorldsGentilesTwo Lives
Author:Maurice Samuel
Create image

“We can hardly say that the Pharisees had an accurate ‘knowledge’ of man when they pointed to the sins (the real sins) of publicans and sinners. This judgment, which separated knowledge of man from self-knowledge, was as nothing in God’s eyes. The Jew did not have a better understanding because he was able to judge the heathen. In the sphere of abstract morality this could possibly be said, but this is not Biblical morality - O man, who judgest others!”

MenSaidRealSelfEyeAbleUnderstandingSinJudgingMoralityJudgmentJewAbstractSinnerSpheresAccurateBiblicalSelf KnowledgeHeathenPharisees
Book:Man: The Image of God
Create image

“Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others. But when he merges his person into an organizational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of humane inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority.”

MenPersonsIndividualGreaterMoralityCreaturesDegreesAuthorityConscienceFlowStructureLimitationImpulseDestructiveHumaneSanctionsSocial PsychologyAutonomousOrganizationalInhibitionsOrganizational StructureObedience To AuthorityIndividual Morality
Author:Stanley Milgram
Create image

“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

MenHas BeensMatterValuesChoicesAnimalPracticeVirtueMoralityOffersAcceptedRationalAlternativesCodeRationalitySuicidal
Author:John Galt
Create image

“Psychological man may be going nowhere, but he aims to achieve a certain speed and certainty in going. Like his predecessor, the man of the market economy, he understands morality as that which is conducive to increased activity. The important thing is to keep going.”

MenMayImportantCertainEconomyAchieveHe ManMoralityActivityAimImportant ThingsSpeedPsychologicalCertaintyKeep GoingPredecessorsMarket Economy
Book:The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud
Create image

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

MenPhilosophyCharacterPoliticalPoliticsMoralVirtueModernHonestyIgnorancePoliticianMoralityExerciseIntegrityClimate ChangeConservativeSelfishSuperiorsSelfishnessEngagedLiberalismJustificationConservatismMoral PhilosophySelf JustificationAnti ConservativeModern PhilosophyModern PoliticsConservative Political
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“For, according to the teachings of Islam, moral knowledge automatically forces moral responsibility upon man. A mere Platonic discernment between Right and Wrong, without the urge to promote Right and to destroy Wrong, is a gross immorality in itself, for morality lives and dies with the human endeavour to establish its victory upon earth.”

MenHumansEarthDiesForceResponsibilityMoralTeachingVictoryMoralityMereIslamUrgesGrossDiscernmentEndeavourImmoralityPlatonicMoral Responsibility
Book:Islam at the Crossroads
Create image

“If Christ be a fraud, he was among the most peculiar yet brilliant of frauds in saying that only he was the way, the truth, and the life. This is the importance of grace - some people think that simply being nice and not harming others is morality; others think that following rules and tithing are morality. But without Christ, all moral beliefs ultimately boil down to the one sin which perpetually rails against the concept of grace: man's lawful, religious, and futile attempt at establishing his own righteousness.”

PeopleIfsThinkingMenWayBeliefChristReligiousSinMoralGraceNiceMoralityConceptsImportanceFollowingBrilliantRighteousnessFraudPeculiarBeing NiceRailTithingHarming OthersFollowing RulesMoral Beliefs
Book:Killosophy
Create image

“It is alleged by men of loose principles, or defective views of the subject, that religion and morality are not necessary or important qualifications for political stations. But the Scriptures teach a different doctrine. They direct that rulers should be men who rule in the fear of God, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness. But if we had no divine instruction on the subject, our own interest would demand of us a strict observance of the principle of these injunctions. . . .”

IfsMenShouldImportantDifferentAblePoliticalHateInterestViewsPrinciplesTeachSubjectsDivineMoralityDemandDirectScriptureDoctrineStationsInstructionRulersStrictBe A ManQualificationsDefectiveCovetousnessObservanceFear God
Author:Noah Webster
Create image

“Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain - and since labor is pain in itself - it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.”

MenDoeShowsPainConditionsDangerousMoralityEasierLaborPainfulResortsPlunder
Book:The Law
Create image

“Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the courage and sagacity necessary for the achievement of supremacy. Even in religion this impulse appears. Nietzsche accused Christianity of inculcating a slave-morality, but ultimate triumph was always the goal. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

MenFeelsEarthGoalChristianityGroupsVictoryMoralityAchievementUltimateBlessedSlaveTriumphImpulseCaptainsAccusedCompetenceSupremacyMeekSagacity
Book:Power: A New Social Analysis
Create image

“Ah! In fact there are two moralities ... The petty one, the conventional one, the one devised by men, that keeps changing and bellows so loudly, making a commotion down here among us, in a perfectly pedestrian way ... But the other one, the eternal one, is all around and above us, like a landscape that surrounds us and the blue sky that gives us light.”

MenWayGivingTwoFactsLightSkyMoralityEternalBlueLandscapeSurroundConventionalPettyBlue SkyPedestrians
Book:Madame Bovary: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Create image

“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
Create image

“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.”

PeopleKnowsMenNeedsWritingTryingLostSportsEffortIssuesFansMoralityBaseballBallsSticksProfoundExcuseInnocenceParenthoodAdsHittingGentlenessNo ExcusesSuggestingGrown ManProfunditySillinessUnreachableLinkages
Book:Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History
Create image

“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
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

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image