Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"You know that murder is wicked. If you saw your master kill a man, do you suppose this would be any excuse for you, if you should commit the same crime?"

Jupiter Hammon, Poet

"One of the most powerful defences the media can offer for controversial actions is, of course, public interest"

Rowan D. Williams, Clergyman

"It is true, there are many bad people; there are more of them than in the past, but that is because there are more people, meaning the population has tripled; there must be three times more bad people"

Bhumibol Adulyadej, Statesman

"I think it's very important to have a sense of balance in covering the war, but you don't have to be morally neutral about terrorism"

Walter Isaacson, Writer

"I believe that we, as the leader of the Free World, must provide important leadership on the ethical parameters, the ethical constraints that this research requires"

Ron Kind, Politician

"Thinking that morality is all about commandments is a relatively new way of thinking, since the Reformation"

Timothy Radcliffe, Clergyman

"Life is not simple, and people can't be boxed into being either heroes or villains"

Jessica Hagedorn, Playwright

"Scientific man is already on the moon, and yet we are still living with the moral concepts of Homer"

Michelangelo Antonioni, Director

"If you can get some of the devil's money to use for the Lord's work, if you have to borrow it, it is all right, and carry on the work"

John Harvey Kellogg, Businessman

"I have always been fascinated by the corruption of power"

Joe Eszterhas, Writer

"Everybody has the ability to be manipulative, to be hateful and deceitful"

Neil LaBute, Director

"It does seem really hard to get consumers to do the right thing. It is stupid that we use two tons of steel, glass, and plastic to haul our sorry selves to the shopping mall. It's stupid that we put water in plastic bottles in Fiji and ship it here"

John Doerr, Businessman

"I think Christine and Chad are on the opposite extremes of the spectrum. Christine is a model victim, and Chad is a model perpetrator, and Howard is closer to the middle"

Neil LaBute, Director

"Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality, that's religion. That's art. That's life"

Phil Ochs, Musician

"So far I, at least, have no fault to find with implications of Hamilton's Federalism, but unfortunately his policy was in certain other respects tainted with a more doubtful tendency"

Herbert Croly, Author

"No crime can ever be defended on rational grounds"

Titus Livius, Historian

"Therefore coercion of the non-invasive, when justifiable at all, is to be justified on the ground that it secures, not a minimum of ' invasion', but a minimum of pain"

Benjamin Tucker, Activist

"American history contains much matter for pride and congratulation, and much matter for regret and humiliation"

Herbert Croly, Author

"I just think you would never kill and cut up a human to wear, so why do it to animals? I just think it's horrible, I would never wear fur, although I guess if it was a really vintage piece you might just get away with it"

Kelly Osbourne, Actress

"Marijuana. Boy, I thought that was just terrible. How could this great man do this to his life?"

Tommy Rettig, Actor

"This can not be about a race to the bottom"

Alexis Herman, Public Servant

"If anyone has a conscience, it's generally a guilty one"

Max Frisch, Novelist

"We humans are a fairly barbarous bunch"

Neil LaBute, Director

"And in this community, as in all others, the Golden Rule still applies - we must be act toward other nations as we would have them act towards America"

Adam Schiff, Politician

"Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It's probably more Western than U.S. per se"

David Foster Wallace, Writer

"Gambling is a disease of barbarians, superficially civilized"

Dean Inge, Philosopher

"Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man"

Jean Genet, Dramatist

"As a real person, he wouldn't last a minute, would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we've moved away from the aspirational hero. We got tired of it, it was dull. If I was House's friend, I would hate it. How he so resolutely refuses to be happy or take the kind-hearted road. But we don't always like morally good people, do we?"

Hugh Laurie, Comedian

"I give the name violence to a boldness lying idle and enamored of danger"

Jean Genet, Dramatist

"There are all sorts of ways of murdering a person or at least his soul, and that's something no police in the world can spot"

Max Frisch, Novelist

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power"

David Brin, Author

"And they understand that to be an effective member of a democracy, you have to accept responsibility"

Daniel Greenberg, Educator

"In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens"

David Brin, Author

"Self-righteous people can talk themselves into forgetting they are part of a civilization. They can then feed on that culture, bringing it down. It's happened many times in the past. It could happen to us"

David Brin, Author

"I am closer to a European viewpoint of the world than an American one. My ethics and ideals are based on European concepts"

Bianca Jagger, Celebrity

"Even in this glowering age, morality animates our lives with meaning"

Armstrong Williams, Journalist

"Some are wrong because they are not strong enough to fight temptation, and some, some are wrong because they do not know"

Arsene Wenger, Coach

"Therefore, the great mediator of any community is human morality"

Armstrong Williams, Journalist

"France, and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing, though, is that people there know how to live! In America they've forgotten all about it. I'm afraid that the American culture is a disaster"

Johnny Depp, Actor

"We conservatives don't have a corner on saying 'no'. We're just the ones who say it when it's the right thing to say"

Mitt Romney, Politician

Page 55 of 78