Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, and why"

Warren Weaver, Scientist

"A human being has been given an intellect to make choices, and we know there are other food sources that do not require the killing of a creature that would protest being killed"

Mary Tyler Moore, Actress

"I believe in a higher power and I believe in good and bad, right and wrong. You sleep in the bed you make"

Leif Garrett, Musician

"For they, the philosophers, were considered teachers of right living, which is far more excellent, since to speak well belongs only to a few, but to live well belongs to all"

Lactantius, Author

"When men take pleasure in feeling their minds elevated with strong drink, and so indulge their appetite as to disorder their understandings, neglect their duty as members of a family or civil society, and cast off all regard to religion, their case is much to be pitied"

John Woolman, Clergyman

"A country should be defended not by arms, but by ethical behavior"

Vinoba Bhave, Educator

"Political commercials encourage the deceptive, the destructive and the degrading"

John O'Toole, Politician

"The kind of society which we still have is maybe, in some cases, getting worse. Competition is becoming a virtue. Intense competition drives people to go more and more into self-interest. Even to see other folks as competition"

Major Owens, Politician

"The argument has been made in Congress that it is slippery slope, if you allow therapeutic, what people people are calling therapeutic cloning, then you will get reproductive cloning"

David Baltimore, Scientist

"Conscience. That stuff can drive you nuts"

Budd Schulberg, Writer

"In short, I'm not sure that the abortion problem can be solved by legislation. I think it can only be solved through moral persuasion"

Tony Campolo, Clergyman

"The commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' does not say it's O.K. to kill some people and not others"

Marvin Harris, Scientist

"In 1930s mysteries, all sorts of motives were credible which aren't credible today, especially motives of preventing guilty sexual secrets from coming out. Nowadays, people sell their guilty sexual secrets"

P. D. James, Novelist

"And as the hour approached for the execution, in his own mind, Collins became both the executioner and the victim. He would pace up and down, transformed in almost a kind of exorcism when he knew he was responsible for taking someone's life"

Liam Neeson, Actor

"Certainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of a whole species can be a great evil. The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the form of life of which animals are capable clearly impose duties of compassion and humanity in their case"

John Rawls, Educator

"Virtue looks good, but it only suits imposing figures"

Frank Wedekind, Playwright

"Men are as we have always known them, neither better nor worse, from the hearts of rogues there springs a latent honesty, from the depths of honest men there emerges a brutish appetite - a thirst for extermination, a desire for blood"

Frederica Montseny, Politician

"In early January I introduced my legislation, which, besides prohibiting Federal funding of human cloning, also expresses the sense of Congress that foreign nations should establish total prohibition on human cloning as well"

Cliff Stearns, Politician

"Duty largely consists of pretending that the trivial is critical"

John Fowles, Writer

"People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations"

Barbara Deming, Author

"We might not object to the statement that Lear deserved to suffer for his folly, selfishness and tyranny; but to assert that he deserved to suffer what he did suffer is to do violence not merely to language but to any healthy moral sense"

Andrew Coyle Bradley, Judge

"The Athenians are right to accept advice from anyone, since it is incumbent on everyone to share in that sort of excellence, or else there can be no city at all"

Protagoras, Philosopher

"I could never, ever have an abortion"

Brooke Shields, Actress

"Selfishness is the only real atheism; unselfishness the only real religion"

Israel Zangwill, Novelist

"I think the thing to remember, though, the next time you hear someone who is really certain that he is on the side of the angels, is that the idea of angels was created by human beings, who are famous for being frequently untrustworthy and occasional"

Jon Carroll, Journalist

"That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful"

Ninon de L'Enclos, Author

"A man's sentiments are generally just and right, while it is second selfish thought which makes him trim and adopt some other view. The best reforms are worked out when sentiment operates, as it does in women, with the indignation of righteousness"

Leland Stanford, Businessman

"Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration"

James Connolly, Politician

"There is nothing evil save that which perverts the mind and shackles the conscience"

Saint Ambrose, Saint

"Well may your heart believe the truths I tell; 'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell"

Wilkie Collins, Novelist

"Hey, you want to hear my philosophy of life? Do it to him before he does it to you"

Budd Schulberg, Writer

"I believe that my art gets across the point that I'm in this morality theater trying to help the underdog, and I'm speaking socially here, showing concern and making psychological and philosophical statements for the underdog"

Jeff Koons, Artist

"In any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action"

Jerry Pournelle, Journalist

"We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil that good may come"

Maria W. Chapman, Writer

"One reason that I embarked on a study of Nazi doctors was that in this personal journey, I had the feeling increasingly that I did want to do a Holocaust study and that increasingly I wanted it to be of perpetrators, which I thought was more needed"

Robert Jay Lifton, Psychologist

"On the surface, we all act like we all love each other and we're free and easy, and actually we're far more moralistic than any other society I've ever lived in"

Kathy Acker, Activist

"Too many people use abortion as a form of birth control. And that's very wrong. I could never, ever have an abortion"

Brooke Shields, Actress

"The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all"

Origen, Theologian

"There are few retreats that can escape the penetrating eye of avarice"

Thomas Clarkson, Activist

"Right is right and wrong is wrong"

Terrell Owens, Athlete

Page 59 of 78