Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"But there's no reason why we should abdicate our foundational principles because certain groups don't believe in them. You know, no majority should surrender its deeply held beliefs to those who don't believe in anything"

Pat Robertson, Clergyman

"We must not indulge in unfavorable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain"

Walter Winchell, Journalist

"Conscience is the window of our spirit, evil is the curtain"

Douglas Horton, Clergyman

"There are times in history where a particular doctrine becomes a symbol of a greater problem"

Pat Robertson, Clergyman

"Every day Catholics prove that you can be a good Catholic and a good Democrat and have a different position from the Church on abortion"

James Carville, Lawyer

"There is no bad in good"

Douglas Horton, Clergyman

"It is difficult to understand these people who democratically take part in elections and a referendum, but are then incapable of democratically accepting the will of the people"

Jose Saramago, Writer

"I think video games and that stuff should be as violent as possible, but age-appropriate. It should be realistic. When it's not realistic, you run into kids running around shooting people and not realizing the consequences"

Darren Aronofsky, Director

"A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well-being of the people"

B. R. Ambedkar, Politician

"Virtue is reason which has become energy"

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Poet

"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian"

Paul McCartney, Musician

"This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing"

Harold Wilson, Statesman

"The oil companies regard nuclear power as their rival, who will reduce their profits, so they put out a lot of disinformation about nuclear power"

James Lovelock, Scientist

"Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation"

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Poet

"The difference between religion and morality lies simply in the classical division of things into the divine and the human, if one only interprets this correctly"

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Poet

"Morality without a sense of paradox is mean"

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Poet

"Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it's a challenge to the moral imagination"

Al Gore, Vice President

"Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man"

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Poet

"As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era"

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Poet

"I have heard that the Saudi Arabians are paying Greenpeace to campaign against Nuclear Power. It wouldn't surprise me at all"

James Lovelock, Scientist

"For each of our actions, there are only consequences"

James Lovelock, Scientist

"I leave to others the decision as to the good or evil tendencies of my character, but such as it is, it shines upon my countenance, and there it can easily be detected by any physiognomist"

Giacomo Casanova, Celebrity

"Abasement, degradation, is simply the manner of life of the man who has refused to be what it is his duty to be"

Jose Ortega Y Gasset, Philosopher

"I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct"

Carl Sandburg, Poet

"Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made"

Jose Ortega Y Gasset, Philosopher

"Most religions do not make men better, only warier"

Elias Canetti, Author

"There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue"

Oliver Goldsmith, Poet

"The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil"

Georges Bataille, Writer

"There is a soul of truth in error; there is a soul of good in evil"

Richard Whately, Writer

"The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government"

Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Author

"So I'm just waiting until one party or the other actually gets a moral compass and a backbone"

John Perry Barlow, Writer

"A murderer is regarded by the conventional world as something almost monstrous, but a murderer to himself is only an ordinary man. It is only if the murderer is a good man that he can be regarded as monstrous"

Graham Greene, Playwright

"Books follow morals, and not morals books"

Theophile Gautier, Poet

"Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another"

Milan Kundera, Writer

"I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect - it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has paid for a woman"

Graham Greene, Playwright

"Many a thief is a better man than many a clergyman, and miles nearer to the gate of the kingdom"

George MacDonald, Novelist

"Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility"

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Activist

"People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times"

Isaac Bashevis Singer, Novelist

"A good man with a good conscience doesn't walk so fast"

Georg Buchner, Dramatist

"As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do"

Elias Canetti, Author

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