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

“The question is wholly other, deeper and equally relevant to all: whether we shall, by whatever means, succeed in reconstituting the natural world as the true terrain of politics, rehabilitating the personal experience of human beings as the initial measure of things, placing morality above politics and responsibility above our desires, in making human community meaningful, in returning content to human speech, in reconstituting, as the focus of all social action, the autonomous, integral, and dignified human "I."”

WorldHumansMeanActionDesireSocialCommunityNaturalHuman BeingsResponsibilityFocusMoralitySucceedSpeechMeaningfulSustainabilityInitialsNatural WorldPersonal ExperiencesAutonomousTerrainSocial Action
Author:Vaclav Havel
Create image

“Today, as in the Gilded Age, we live in a world where a morality of personal responsibility rubs shoulders with a culture of greed and of flagrant social irresponsibility. Now as then, business has shed its collective responsibility for employees - just as government has for its citizens.”

WorldGovernmentAgeTodayCultureSocialResponsibilityCitizensMoralityGreedShouldersCorporationsEmployeeCollectivesShedPersonal ResponsibilityIrresponsibilityGildedGilded AgeCollective Responsibility
Book:Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States
Create image

“[The church] is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayHumansStillsMatterDoneCertainSufferingChurchMoralProgressObjectsOughtMoralityMajorsImprovementChosenLabelsOpponentsDiminishMaking People HappyHuman Happiness
Book:Why I Am Not a Christian
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

“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.”

WorldWellsSaidWarEndsStatesMightForceUnitedCitiesLeaderEnemyUnited StatesAirColdMoralityDestructionThreatPopulationIsraelNuclearWar Of The WorldsBombsWillingnessPermitWorld War IiWorld War ICold WarAssuredCiviliansIsraeliAir ForceNuclear BombMutually Assured Destruction
Author:Alan Dershowitz
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

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
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

“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

“What I would argue is that real spirituality is the ability to keep encountering two opposite thoughts at the same time and still maintain some kind of morality and perspective in the world. It is not the elimination of one side of the equation or the elimination of what you don't like; it is the investigation of everything.”

WorldKindStillsTwoRealSpiritualitySidesAbilityPerspectiveMoralityOppositesArguingInvestigationEquationsEliminationTwo Opposites
Author:Eve Ensler
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

“You are all alike, you respectable people. You can't tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is a very simple matter;but you all think you can tell me the bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren't handle high explosives; but you're all ready to handle honesty and truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another at that game. What a country! What a world!”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldCountryMatterWholeGamesJusticeSimpleHonestyReadyDutyLike YouMoralityTenGunHandleTemptationInchesStrainRespectableExplosivesBurstingRespectabilityTruth And HonestyTruth And Justice
Book:The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion
Create image

“Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience.”

WorldAgePoliticalReligiousLevelsEconomicMoralityMotherhoodProfessionBackgroundsHeightCitizenshipPreferenceConvenienceAffiliationEthnic Background
Book:Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession
Create image

“A man needs no arguments to make him discern and approve what is beautiful: it strikes at first sight, and attracts without a reason. And as this beauty is found in the shape and form of corporeal things, so also is there analogous to it a beauty of another kind, an order, a symmetry, and comeliness in the moral world. And as the eye perceiveth the one, so the mind doth by a certain interior sense perceive the other, which sense, talent, or faculty, is ever quickest and purest in the noblest minds.”

MenWorldNeedsMindFirstsKindReasonEyeBeautifulFormCertainOrderFoundBeautyMoralTalentMoralityShapesPerceptionArgumentSightStrikesPerceiveFacultyInteriorsSymmetry
Book:Alciphron: Or, The Minute Philosopher. In Seven Dialogues Containing an Apology for the Christian Religion Against Those who are Called Free-thinkers
Create image

“The world has always needed human beings who refuse to believe that history is nothing but a dull, monstrous selfrepetition, a selfperpetuating, meaningless game, only varied in outer garb, who cannot be converted from their conviction that history signifies progress in morality, that our race is ascending on an invisible ladder from an animal nature towards divinity, from brutal violence to the wisely ordering intellect, and that the ultimate stage of complete understanding is already close at hand, indeed has almost been attained.”

WorldBelieveHumansHandsGamesUnderstandingGrowthHuman BeingsAnimalRaceProgressViolenceStageNeededMoralityGoodnessUltimateRefuseConvictionIntellectInvisibleDullDivinityMeaninglessBrutalLaddersMonstrousAscending
Author:Stefan Zweig
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

“Each man's private conscience ought to be a nice little self-registering thermometer: he ought to carry his moral code incorruptibly and explicitly within himself, and not care what the world thinks. The mass of human beings, however, are not made that way; and many people have been saved from crime or sin by the simple dislike of doing things they would not like to confess.”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldWayHumansLittlesHas BeensMadeSelfCareHuman BeingsSinSimpleMoralNiceCrimeOughtMoralityMassConscienceSavedCodeDislikeMoral CodeThermometers
Book:Modes and Morals
Create image

“Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there are scientific truths to be known about how we can flourish in this world. Wherever we can have an impact on the well-being of others, questions of morality apply.”

WorldHumansWellsKnownEconomicThis WorldDependsMoralityEconomicsImpactFactorsWell BeingPhenomenonSociologyGeneticsScientific TruthNeurobiology
Author:Sam Harris
Create image

“The Nazi danger to our Western world has long ceased to be a mere possibility. The danger is here now--not only from a military enemy but from an enemy of all law, all liberty, all morality, all religion.”

WorldLongLawLibertyEnemyMilitaryDangerPossibilityMoralityMereWesternNaziWestern World
Book:Fireside chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: radio addresses to the American people about the Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War, 1933-1944
Create image

“If the world is an aggregate of relatively independent regions, then any assumption of universal laws is false and a demand for universal norms tyrannical: only brute force (or seductive deception) can then bend the different moralities so that they fit the prescriptions of a single ethical system. And indeed, the idea of universal laws of nature and society arose in connection with a life-and-death battle: the battle that gave Zeus the power over the Titans and all other gods and thus turned his laws into the laws of the universe.”

IfsWorldIdeasDifferentLawUniverseForceFitMoralityBattleDemandConnectionsUniversalIndependentDeceptionAssumptionLife And DeathRegionsEthicalNormLaws Of NatureBrutesPrescriptionsSeductiveZeusBrute ForceUniversal LawsTitans
Author:Paul Feyerabend
Create image