Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"Often the remedy is deemed the highest good because it helps so many"

Paracelsus, Scientist

"Medicine rests upon four pillars - philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics"

Paracelsus, Scientist

"Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice"

Jacques Barzun, Educator

"To be interested in the public good, we must be disinterested, that is, not interested in goods in which our personal selves are wrapped up"

George H. Mead, Philosopher

"In any profession, there's a sleazy side and an honorable side"

Gina Gershon, Actress

"We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives"

Edward Dahlberg, Novelist

"The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea"

Jean-Luc Godard, Director

"The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul"

Christian Nestell Bovee, Author

"Good men have the fewest fears. He has but one great fear who fears to do wrong; he has a thousand who has overcome it"

Christian Nestell Bovee, Author

"Piety is the most solid goodness, and the vilest of what is evil is vice"

Abu Bakr, Leader

"Intentions count in your actions"

Abu Bakr, Leader

"Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidiest and most pernicious illusion"

Allan Bloom, Philosopher

"Authentic values are those by which a life can be lived, which can form a people that produces great deeds and thoughts"

Allan Bloom, Philosopher

"Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the Ten Commandments"

Charles Dudley Warner, Journalist

"I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity"

Charles Dudley Warner, Journalist

"Goodness makes greatness truly valuable, and greatness make goodness much more serviceable"

Matthew Henry, Clergyman

"A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle"

George William Curtis, Author

"One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well"

Louis Kronenberger, Critic

"A man may well be condemned, not for doing something, but for doing nothing"

William Barclay, Theologian

"Everything understood by the term co-operation is in some sense an evil"

William Godwin, Writer

"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable"

Jodie Foster, Actress

"Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice"

Horace Walpole, Author

"The only reason I'm in Hollywood is that I don't have the moral courage to refuse the money"

Marlon Brando, Actor

"Even at school I studied ethics instead of religion"

Ville Valo, Musician

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires"

Joseph Ratzinger, Clergyman

"It is right noble to fight with wickedness and wrong; the mistake is in supposing that spiritual evil can be overcome by physical means"

Lydia M. Child, Activist

"In everyday things the law of sacrifice takes the form of positive duty"

James Anthony Froude, Historian

"The problems that I really like to solve are our cultural problems"

Larry Wall, Author

"Moral power is probably best when it is not used. The less you use it the more you have"

Andrew Young, Clergyman

"Far more has been accomplished for the welfare and progress of mankind by preventing bad actions than by doing good ones"

William Lyon Mackenzie King, Politician

"Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference"

Iris Murdoch, Author

"Moralistic is not moral. And as for truth - well, it's like brown - it's not in the spectrum. Truth is so generic"

Iris Murdoch, Author

"I didn't want to be greedy. It's a mark of bad character and I always believed that pigs go the slaughterhouse"

Walter Annenberg, Businessman

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is more or less strong tendency ordered to an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder"

Joseph Ratzinger, Clergyman

"Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to really ignore it. It would be a nightmare if we started to really think about it; it would tie our hands, it would tie everyone else's hands"

Rem Koolhaas, Architect

"The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives, and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy"

Paul Wellstone, Politician

"Politics is not about money"

Paul Wellstone, Politician

"I don't think politics has anything to do with left, right, or center. It has to do with trying to do right by people"

Paul Wellstone, Politician

"I am sure there is a right way and a wrong way, and in today's life, there are many different rules of being politically correct"

Mike Singletary, Athlete

"If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such"

William Godwin, Writer

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