Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French"

Charles de Secondat, Philosopher

"You have to protect it too, you can't let just any stupid person take it and do something demoralizing with it. At the same time, I don't believe in being so rigid about controlling what happens either"

Paul Auster, Author

"The European model is in danger if we obliterate the principle of personal responsibility"

Jacques Delors, Economist

"For many years, I have lived uncomfortably with the belief that most planning and architectural design suffers for lack of real and basic purpose. The ultimate purpose, it seems to me, must be the improvement of mankind"

James Rouse, Businessman

"He wanted to be a lawyer, couldn't afford it, so he started dealing to go to college - good intention"

John Leguizamo, Comedian

"If modernist naturalism were true, there would be no objective truth outside of science. In that case, right and wrong would be a matter of cultural preference, or political power, and the power already available to modernists' ideologies would be overwhelming"

Phillip E. Johnson, Educator

"There is a tone of morality throughout the rural districts of England, which is unhappily wanting in the large towns and the centres of particular manufactures"

Henry Mayhew, Journalist

"When I was old enough to realize all meat was killed, I saw it as an irrational way of using our power, to take a weaker thing and mutilate it. It was like the way bullies would take control of younger kids in the schoolyard"

River Phoenix, Actor

"We are taught to consume. And that's what we do. But if we realized that there really is no reason to consume, that it's just a mind set, that it's just an addiction, then we wouldn't be out there stepping on people's hands, climbing the corporate ladder of success"

River Phoenix, Actor

"In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure, but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments"

Rutherford B. Hayes, President

"However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights"

Hans Kung, Theologian

"In restoring man from evil sovereignty, we must cheat"

Sun Myung Moon, Clergyman

"Furthermore, America suffers not only from a lack of standards, but also not infrequently from a confusion or an inversion of standards"

Irving Babbitt, Critic

"You know, we're really destroying ourselves because we're really making the motivating force of anything we do selfish"

Ralph Steadman, Cartoonist

"It is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do right by mistake"

Junius, Writer

"The choice is not between conducting the stem cell research or not conducting it. That is not the choice"

Roger Wicker, Politician

"I do think the heart can balance out the mind, if your heart is in a good place it can give you the strength to do the right thing and behave the right way and overcome the mind"

Alexis Arguello, Athlete

"I felt guilty throughout the whole time, but I was seduced. The power of these drugs, sex, power, and money was extremely strong for me"

John Perkins, Economist

"The State becomes society or humanity on the ethical side, a production and trade system on the economic side"

Francis Parker Yockey, Writer

"I know this is going to sound cheesy and like I'm trying to be Miss America, but the most important responsibility a celebrity has is to set an example and be a role model"

Clay Aiken, Musician

"I value peace when it is not bought at the price of fundamental decencies"

Elia Kazan, Director

"Much melancholy has devolved upon mankind, and it is detestable to me that might will triumph in the end"

Karel Capek, Writer

"I certainly don't know if you could claim that every theft is wrong, but I'll prove to you that every theft is forbidden, by simply locking you up"

Karel Capek, Writer

"For we, too, have our ideals, even if we differ from those who have tried to establish a monopoly of idealism"

Henry Cabot Lodge, Politician

"The ethical manifold, conceived of as unified, furnishes, or rather is, the ideal of the whole"

Felix Adler, Educator

"Hatred is not contained in political thinking. Any hatred worked up against the public enemy is non-political, and always shows some weakness in the internal political situation"

Francis Parker Yockey, Writer

"Cruelty to men and to the lower animals as well, which would have passed unnoticed a century ago, now shocks the sensibilities and is regarded as wicked and degrading"

Elihu Root, Lawyer

"According to our Christian ethics, we're supposed to love God, love each other and help take care of the poor. It is immoral to charge somebody making $5,000 an income tax"

Bob Riley, Politician

"Vladimir Nabokov said the two great evils of the 20th century were Marx and Freud. He was absolutely correct"

Dean Koontz, Author

"We are coming out of a century that was taught that one way of looking at the world, that one form of behavior, is as valid as another. The idea of true evil has been blown away"

Dean Koontz, Author

"But the imposition of morality onto science - where it does not belong - has become rampant in recent years"

Bill Condon, Director

"It's bad when you fail morally. It's worse when you don't repent"

Luis Palau, Clergyman

"Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public"

George McGovern, Politician

"Materialist philosophies that treat human beings as machines or animals possess the high ground in our culture - academia, the most powerful media and many of our courts"

Marvin Olasky, Educator

"It would be foolhardy to count on the conscience of the world"

Stefan Zweig, Writer

"To make the moral achievement implicit in science a source of strength to civilization, the scientist will have to have the cooperation also of the philosopher and the religious teacher"

Arthur Holly Compton, Scientist

"Sometimes what's right isn't as important as what's profitable"

Trey Parker, Artist

"Every sin is the result of collaboration"

Stephen Crane, Writer

"I have reached the conclusion that those who have physical courage also have moral courage. Physical courage is a great test"

Oriana Fallaci, Journalist

"Every man is responsible only for his own acts. The sons do not inherit the sins of the fathers. But can we say: That was long ago, they were different?"

Aleksander Kwasniewski, Politician

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