Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"Nothing can be more obvious than that all animals were created solely and exclusively for the use of man"

Thomas Love Peacock, Author

"The extent of one man's guilt may be defined by how much of it is experienced by the party he injured"

Ryszard Kapuscinski, Journalist

"We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot"

Saint Aurelius Augustine, Theologian

"Do you want to feel good, or do you want to do good?"

Ted Nugent, Musician

"In doing what we ought, we deserve no praise, because it is our duty"

Saint Aurelius Augustine, Theologian

"Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life"

Saul Alinsky, Activist

"Some campaigns are not worth waging if you can't win; others have to be fought on grounds of principle, regardless of the chances for success"

Patricia Ireland, Activist

"Not all of those who cry, "The poor, the poor!" will enter the kingdom of heaven"

Michael Novak, Philosopher

"Convinced as I am, and as I am from my government, that the world needs a new moral architecture over all, I believe that this should be the first topic to debate in our world of today, ethics, moral"

Hugo Chavez, Statesman

"Healing is a moral thing to do"

Jay Inslee, Politician

"Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace"

Paddy Ashdown, Politician

"What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?"

Alan Paton, Novelist

"Even papists could not see that a moral evil was detained in the soul through its physical connection with the body; and that it required the dissolution of this physical connection before the moral contagion could be removed"

Adam Clarke, Theologian

"I cannot imagine a context that would some day, in some manner, make the monstrous crime of September 11 an understandable or comprehensible political act"

Jurgen Habermas, Philosopher

"From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out"

Jurgen Habermas, Philosopher

"We're all going to be victims of temptation at several points in our lives"

Smokey Robinson, Musician

"This House cannot function without an open, accountable, and independent ethics process; and the molestation of that process by the majority is an abuse of power that cannot stand"

Louise Slaughter, Politician

"Committing genocide on behalf of an institution generates greater loyalty to it than merely getting people fired from their jobs on its behalf"

John McCarthy, Politician

"All moral laws are merely statements that certain kinds of actions will have good effects"

George Edward Moore, Philosopher

"We must recognize the fact that many Nazis, Marxists and Fascists believe passionately in their fundamental rightness, and allow nothing to hinder them from their goal in the pursuit of their mission"

Dorothy Day, Activist

"Shakespeare said, Nothing is either good nor bad but thinking makes it so"

Dyan Cannon, Actress

"An arrow may fly through the air and leave no trace; but an ill thought leaves a trail like a serpent"

Charles Mackay, Poet

"Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him, in particular, all his life long"

Robert Burton, Writer

"A good conscience is a continual feast"

Robert Burton, Writer

"The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles"

Charles de Secondat, Philosopher

"There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about"

Antonio Tabucchi, Writer

"The accumulation of numbers always augments in some measure moral corruptions, and the consequences to health of the various vices incident thereto, are well known"

William Falconer, Poet

"What would I have done if I'd been put to the test? Would I have risked my own life for people I hardly knew? Probably, I would have looked the other way at best or become another apologist for evil at worst"

Lionel Blue, Clergyman

"It was admitted by the early rabbis that the sectarians could be as full of good works as eggs were full of meat"

Lionel Blue, Clergyman

"The balance of private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals; but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on nothing else"

Lascelles Abercrombie, Poet

"Slavery was regarded by Aristotle as an ordinance of nature, and so probably was it by the slaves themselves in olden time"

Alfred Marshall, Economist

"In every age, poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old"

Alfred Marshall, Economist

"We are tainted by modern philosophy which has taught us that all is good, whereas evil has polluted everything and in a very real sense, all is evil, since nothing is in its proper place"

Joseph de Maistre, Diplomat

"Man is so muddled, so dependent on the things immediately before his eyes, that every day, even the most submissive believer, can be seen to risk the torments of the afterlife for the smallest pleasure"

Joseph de Maistre, Diplomat

"Man is insatiable for power; he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man"

Joseph de Maistre, Diplomat

"If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil"

Joseph de Maistre, Diplomat

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice"

Joseph de Maistre, Diplomat

"One murder made a villain, Millions a hero"

Beilby Porteus, Clergyman

"I've participated in meetings where there were concerns by ethical experts. There is no clear solution"

Luc Montagnier, Scientist

"The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil"

Thomas Malthus, Economist

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