Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"The people of the future will say, meat-eaters in disgust and regard us in the same way that we regard cannibals and cannibalism"

Dennis Weaver, Actor

"As somebody once said, we're not punished for our sins, we're punished by them"

Hugh Leonard, Dramatist

"Our moral traditions developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product"

Friedrich August von Hayek, Economist

"It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide"

Friedrich August von Hayek, Economist

"I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions"

Friedrich August von Hayek, Economist

"They act as if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement of mankind is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any improvement in particular"

John Morley, Statesman

"He who hates vice hates men"

John Morley, Statesman

"Men value things in three ways: as useful, as pleasant, or sources of pleasure, and as excellent, or as intrinsically admirable or honorable"

Mortimer Adler, Philosopher

"It is always one's virtues and not one's vices that precipitate one into disaster"

Rebecca West, Author

"For, when with beauty we can virtue join, We paint the semblance of a form divine"

Matthew Prior, Poet

"Many people think that virtue consists of severity towards others"

Alphonse Karr, Critic

"Oregon is the only state in the union that facilitates suicide"

Maggie Gallagher, Writer

"Dante himself is open to the suspicion of partiality: it is said, not without apparent ground, that he puts into hell all the enemies of the political cause, which, in his eyes, was that of Italy and God"

Goldwin Smith, Historian

"The ends must justify the means"

Matthew Prior, Poet

"If you think of paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured"

Stendhal, Writer

"It is safest to be moderately base - to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue"

Sydney Smith, Clergyman

"The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods"

John Maynard Keynes, Economist

"My dad's a doctor, and when I was 8, I went to one of his medical conferences where they were demonstrating laser surgery on a chicken. I was so mad that a chicken had to die, I never ate meat again"

Natalie Portman, Actress

"The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins"

Salman Rushdie, Novelist

"Bankers cannot afford to be concerned with only the economic aspects of projects. There may be serious implications on the natural environment, the urban environment, on human culture"

Arthur Erickson, Architect

"There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience"

Stokely Carmichael, Activist

"A man's conscience, like a warning line on the highway, tells him what he shouldn't do - but it does not keep him from doing it"

Frank Howard Clark, Writer

"Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings"

Salman Rushdie, Novelist

"Yet humanitarianism is not a purely Christian movement any more than it is a purely humanist one"

Christopher Dawson, Writer

"Man is a means and not an end, and he is a means to economic or political ends which are not really ends in themselves but means to other ends which in their turn are means and so ad infinitum"

Christopher Dawson, Writer

"And so, today, if the state can no longer appeal to the old moral principles that belong to the Christian tradition, it will be forced to create a new official faith and new moral principles which will be binding on its citizens"

Christopher Dawson, Writer

"The present age has seen a great slump in humanist values"

Christopher Dawson, Writer

"This great, though disastrous, culture can only change as we begin to stand off and see... the inveterate materialism which has become the model for cultures around the world"

Arthur Erickson, Architect

"Every society rests in the last resort on the recognition of common principles and common ideals, and if it makes no moral or spiritual appeal to the loyalty of its members, it must inevitably fall to pieces"

Christopher Dawson, Writer

"What is the thread of Western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of Western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority"

Arthur Erickson, Architect

"There is no sin but ignorance"

Christopher Marlowe, Dramatist

"Goodness is beauty in the best estate"

Christopher Marlowe, Dramatist

"Belief is a moral act for which the believer is to be held responsible"

Lillian Hellman, Dramatist

"Who are you to condemn another's sin? He who condemns sin becomes part of it, espouses it"

Georges Bernanos, Author

"The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more"

Georges Bernanos, Author

"Guilt always hurries towards its complement, punishment; only there does its satisfaction lie"

Lawrence Durrell, Writer

"I urge you to ask yourself just how honorable it is to preside over the abuse and suffering of animals"

Richard Pryor, Actor

"There is one universal sex law: Sex shall not be unregulated"

Robert Anton Wilson, Writer

"Only when the sense of the pain of others begins does man begin"

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Poet

"And these things are pretty much foundational: thou shall not kill, steal, bear false witness. All these things are embedded into the laws we enjoy in our nation"

Pat Robertson, Clergyman

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