Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"To the totality of purposes of the perfect Law there belong the abandonment, depreciation, and restraint of desires in so far as possible"

Maimonides, Philosopher

"Rise above principle and do what's right"

Joseph Heller, Novelist

"Too many moralists begin with a dislike of reality"

Clarence Day, Author

"The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility"

Vaclav Havel, Leader

"As we begin this debate, I am confident that we will hear the supporters of this bill argue in the name of Ronald Reagan that this research is consistent with his long-held views about the sanctity of life"

Mike Pence, Politician

"Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation"

Henry Fielding, Novelist

"Conscience - the only incorruptible thing about us"

Henry Fielding, Novelist

"There is an insolence which none but those who themselves deserve contempt can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear"

Henry Fielding, Novelist

"I couldn't kill a chicken, I couldn't kill a cow - I was a vegetarian too at that time - so I thought, well, what is there that I could kill? I couldn't kill this and I couldn't kill that"

Ellen Burstyn, Actress

"No man could be equipped for the presidency if he has never been tempted by one of the seven cardinal sins"

Eugene McCarthy, Politician

"I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy. Democrats have strong moral values. Frankly, my moral values are offended by some of the things I hear on programs like "Rush Limbaugh," and we don't have to put up with that"

Howard Dean, Politician

"Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers' suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions and unwanted children"

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Politician

"There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it"

Sam Mendes, Director

"Conscience is the sentinel of virtue"

Johann Kaspar Lavater, Theologian

"Mistrust the person who finds everything good, and the person who finds everything evil, and mistrust even more the person who is indifferent to everything"

Johann Kaspar Lavater, Theologian

"I don't think good and evil are polarized"

Sam Mendes, Director

"Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much"

Georg C. Lichtenberg, Scientist

"Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity, which under other circumstances we would call stupidity"

Georg C. Lichtenberg, Scientist

"There would be no supporting life, were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves"

Samuel Richardson, Novelist

"There is no one on earth more disgusting and repulsive than he who gives alms. Even as there is no one so miserable as he who accepts them"

Maxim Gorky, Novelist

"A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains"

Maxim Gorky, Novelist

"Our ability to create has outreached our ability to use wisely the products of our invention"

Whitney M. Young, Activist

"I cannot consistently, with self respect, do other than I have, namely, to deliberately violate an act which seems to me to be a denial of everything which ideally and in practice I hold sacred"

Roger Nash Baldwin, Activist

"There are no generalizations in American politics that vested selfishness cannot cut through"

John Gunther, Journalist

"I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me"

Richard Steele, Dramatist

"Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff"

Sojourner Truth, Activist

"Conscience is the perfect interpreter of life"

Karl Barth, Theologian

"People have become shallower. They view spending, entertaining, seeking leisure and enjoying as the main objectives of their life"

Zhang Yimou, Director

"Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality; what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution"

Judith Martin, Author

"In matters of conscience, first thoughts are best. In matters of prudence, last thoughts are best"

Robert Hall, Clergyman

"You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right"

Alan Paton, Novelist

"Honor among thieves is the ancestor of all honor"

John McCarthy, Politician

"See, I think if it just became who's sleeping with whom, then there's no reason to prefer one party over the other, 'cause the truth is we're all sinners"

Paul Begala, Journalist

"I want you to have this feeling too - it is my moral responsibility to help you achieve this inner freedom"

Dmitri Mendeleev, Scientist

"Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking"

John McCarthy, Politician

"It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large"

Chris Patten, Politician

"God save us from people who do the morally right thing. It's always the rest of us who get broken in half"

Paddy Chayefsky, Playwright

"When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed"

Judith Martin, Author

"Revenge proves its own executioner"

John Ford, Dramatist

"Someone like Einstein was quite clearly a moralist, and he had a very highly developed political vision and was very spiritual in his way, and there are many biologists and physicists of the first order who are like that"

Jonathan Miller, Entertainer

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