Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience"

John Henry Newman, Clergyman

"Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more"

Nikola Tesla, Inventor

"It is necessary to make virtue fashionable"

Jose Marti, Activist

"Giving is good, but taking is bad and brings death"

Hesiod, Poet

"The good is, like nature, an immense landscape in which man advances through centuries of exploration"

Jose Ortega Y Gasset, Philosopher

"A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it"

George MacDonald, Novelist

"Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears"

Albert Bandura, Psychologist

"To do nothing evil is good; to wish nothing evil is better"

Claudius, Leader

"Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself"

James Anthony Froude, Historian

"To me, its seems necessary to rediscover - and the energy to do so exists - that even the political and economic spheres need moral responsibility, a responsibility that is born in man's heart and, in the end, has to do with the presence or absence of God"

Joseph Ratzinger, Clergyman

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not... with regard to abortion and euthanasia"

Joseph Ratzinger, Clergyman

"The ones I pity are the ones who never stick out their neck for something they believe, never know the taste of moral struggle, and never have the thrill of victory"

Jonathan Kozol, Writer

"If we are not our brother's keeper, at least let us not be his executioner"

Marlon Brando, Actor

"A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's"

Richard Whately, Writer

"Being good is just a matter of temperament in the end"

Iris Murdoch, Author

"If we don't believe in moral absolutes and then we get into a cultural-political debate, how are we going to win?"

Randall Terry, Celebrity

"The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil"

James Monroe, President

"There's a subterranean impetus towards pornography so powerful that half the business world is juiced by the sort of half sex that one finds in advertisements"

Norman Mailer, Novelist

"The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil"

Maria Montessori, Educator

"When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil"

Max Lerner, Journalist

"I don't believe in devils. Indifference and misunderstandings can create evil situations. Most of the time, people who appear to be evil are really victims of evil deeds"

Max von Sydow, Actor

"Every good cause is worth some inefficiency"

Paul Samuelson, Economist

"Socialism also brings us up against the hard rock of eugenic fact, which, if we neglect it, will dash our most beautiful social construction to fragments"

Havelock Ellis, Psychologist

"Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics"

Christopher Lasch, Historian

"To make one good action succeed another is the perfection of goodness"

Ali ibn Abi Talib, Clergyman

"They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise"

Boris Pasternak, Novelist

"Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of Creativity"

Nadine Gordimer, Novelist

"No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic"

John Robert Seeley, Writer

"The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number"

William Dean Howells, Author

"In the case of abortion, one pits the life of the fetus against the interests of the pregnant woman"

Leon Kass, Educator

"When you're doing wrong, you're gonna think wrong"

John Armstrong, Soldier

"Isn't privacy about keeping taboos in their place?"

Kate Millett, Activist

"The involuntary character of psychiatric treatment is at odds with the spirit and ethics of medicine itself"

Kate Millett, Activist

"What is the quality of your intent?"

Thurgood Marshall, Judge

"Cloning represents a very clear, powerful, and immediate example in which we are in danger of turning procreation into manufacture"

Leon Kass, Educator

"I've been opposed to human cloning from the very beginning"

Leon Kass, Educator

"Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage"

Wendell Phillips, Activist

"Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people"

Bill Moyers, Journalist

"The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority"

Ralph W. Sockman, Leader

"I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give'"

Abigail Adams, First Lady

Page 17 of 77