Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal"

Bishop Robert South, Theologian

"Eternal truth, eternal righteousness, eternal love; these only can triumph, for these only can endure"

Joseph Barber Lightfoot, Theologian

"The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue"

Frances Wright, Writer

"All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice"

Theodore Bikel, Actor

"The most powerful moral influence is example"

Huston Smith, Theologian

"The modern period adds social ethics to religion's agenda, for we now realize that social structures are not like laws of nature. They are human creations, so we are responsible for them"

Huston Smith, Theologian

"So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues"

Huston Smith, Theologian

"Some things must be good in themselves, else there could be no measure whereby to lay out good and evil"

Benjamin Whichcote, Philosopher

"Conscience without judgment is superstition"

Benjamin Whichcote, Philosopher

"Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome"

Benjamin Whichcote, Philosopher

"Remorse is the pain of sin"

Theodore Parker, Theologian

"Commerce is against morality. Morality is going to lose every time"

Robin Day, Journalist

"I personally felt that his ad hominen attacks on British architects were not the sort of thing a Prince of Wales should be doing because, apart from anything else, they put various people out of business"

Anthony Holden, Journalist

"Among other things, they picked out a detail that Charles had been offered the Governorship of Hong Kong in its dying days by Thatcher in return for shutting up about the inner cities. He quite rightly, in my view, led the paper on this story"

Anthony Holden, Journalist

"I consider nothing low but ignorance, vice, and meanness, characteristics generally found where the animal propensities predominate over the higher sentiments"

William John Wills, Scientist

"What interests me is the collision between idealism and corruption"

Alex Gibney, Director

"I'm drawn to stories where people convince themselves they're doing the right thing even as the damage mounts"

Alex Gibney, Director

"The worst crimes are not committed by evil degenerates, but by decent and intelligent people taking 'pragmatic' decisions"

Colin Wilson, Writer

"For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me"

Andrei Sakharov, Physicist

"And sometimes you have to go above the written law, I believe"

Fawn Hall, Celebrity

"We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo - men, women and children. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

Robert McNamara, Public Servant

"Nobody has a franchise on what is good"

Ron Silver, Actor

"When I was twelve, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature who was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning?"

Marv Levy, Coach

"A "sin" is something which is not necessary"

G. I. Gurdjieff, Educator

"Now I start my diary of my personal plot to kill by pistol either Richard Nixon or George Wallace"

Arthur Bremer, Criminal

"Dark impulses certainly exist in me and, I think, in most people"

Stephen Hopkins, Writer

"The toute ensemble was such as to make polished society blush, when compared with these savages"

Zebulon Pike, Soldier

"Law is vulnerable to the winds of intellectual or moral fashion, which it then validates as the commands of our most basic concept"

Robert Bork, Public Servant

"When a benevolent mind contemplates the republic of Lycurgus, its admiration is mixed with a degree of horror"

Thomas Day, Author

"A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego"

Muhammed Iqbal, Poet

"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

"No one today knows what is indecent"

Jack Valenti, Businessman

"Thresholds of pain, indignity and incapacity are entirely personal"

Polly Toynbee, Journalist

"I have always maintained that society has no business dictating morality"

Peter Fonda, Actor

"Mankind is considered (by the radical environmentalists) the lowest and the meanest of all species and is blamed for everything"

Dixie Lee Ray, Politician

"The proposition that we should encourage wickedness and violence by exposing one side of the face to blows because we have been beaten on the other is too great an absurdity"

Thomas Mellon, Businessman

"Nobody thinks that they're evil or bad, they think that they're doing the right thing"

Andrew McCarthy, Actor

"The holocaust against the unborn is the greatest sin they could ever do or even ever participate in"

Norma McCorvey, Celebrity

"Patients would come in and say, Well, my baby is going to have a cleft palate. I'm going like, that's not a reason. And the doctor would do the abortion"

Norma McCorvey, Celebrity

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