Philosophy & Thought: Ethics & Morality Quotes

"Now here is a departure from the first principle of true ethics. Here we find ideas of moral wrong and moral right associated with something else than beneficial action. The consequent is, we lose sight of the real basis of morals, and substitute a false one"

Francis Wright, Activist

"I guess it was, but I think people's morality has changed. It's gotten more liberal and more diverse and even in a sense much more fundamental, you take the fundamental religious right in this country, it's got to go back about 50 years"

Larry Hagman, Actor

"Our culture is in moral chaos. On TV we celebrate freaks instead of honest, decent people"

Kathie Lee Gifford, Entertainer

"It's silly to keep people alive who have a terrible disease"

Imogen Cunningham, Photographer

"All institutions are prone to corruption and to the vices of their members"

Morris West, Writer

"By continually pushing the message that we have the right to gratification now, consumerism at its most expansive encouraged a demand for fulfillment that could not so easily be contained by products"

Ellen Willis, Writer

"It is necessary to take an active part in politics to observe how often the welfare of the party organization is put before the issues, even before the welfare of the commonwealth"

Charles Edison, Businessman

"We cannot sacrifice innocent human life now for vague and exaggerated promises of medical treatments thirty of forty years from now. There are ways to pursue this technology and respect life at the same time"

Ernest Istook, Politician

"There are many alternatives to embryonic stem cell research, alternatives with great potential. We need to support these and oppose creating life for the sole purpose of destroying it"

Ernest Istook, Politician

"Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape"

George Bancroft, Historian

"The egoist is fooled by no ideals: he discards them or uses them, as may suit his own interest"

John Buchanan Robinson, Politician

"And I think that what is of concern is that they seem to be bringing skills from the scientific world into the interrogation room in a way that begs a lot of questions about whether it's ethical?"

Jane Mayer, Journalist

"The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important"

Albert J. Nock, Philosopher

"You can make yourself feel better about yourself if you project your shadow side, if you project your own potential for evil onto someone else. By annihilating them and, therefore, your shadow, you bring yourself into some state of purity or reformation"

Jennifer Beals, Actress

"I was not sympathetic to the assumption that criminals had radically different motivations from everyone else"

Gary Becker, Economist

"Heroic people take risks to themselves to help others. There's nothing heroic about accepting $5 million to go out and run around chasing a ball, although you may show fortitude or those other qualities while you do it"

Gregg Easterbrook, Author

"Nothing is sacred, right?"

Mia Kirshner, Actress

"Put this restriction on your pleasures, be cautious that they injure no being that lives"

John Zimmerman, Athlete

"I'm saying that the WMD reporting was not consciously evil. It was bad journalism, even very bad journalism"

Daniel Okrent, Editor

"None of us is guaranteed against failure or corruption of any kind; witness what's going on in the world in this moment, the follies of human nature and the failures of human nature"

Morris West, Writer

"I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me"

James C. Maxwell, Mathematician

"There is no word more generally misinterpreted than the word egoism, in its modern sense"

John Buchanan Robinson, Politician

"It's Australian to do such things because, however uncivilised they may seem, it's human to do them"

Hugh Mackay, Writer

"But the egoist has no ideals, for the knowledge that his ideals are only his ideals, frees him from their domination. He acts for his own interest, not for the interest of ideals"

John Buchanan Robinson, Politician

"In brief, egoism in its modern interpretation, is the antithesis, not of altruism, but of idealism"

John Buchanan Robinson, Politician

"If your religion doesn't teach you the difference between good and evil, your religion is worse than useless"

Dennis Prager, Journalist

"There are only two sorts of people in life you can trust - good Christians and good Communists"

Joe Slovo, Politician

"The often cruel behavior of Christians toward unbelievers and even toward dissenters among themselves is shocking evidence of the function of that image in relation to values and behavior"

Carol P. Christ, Educator

"In England, it's thought to be morally suspect to worry about what your surroundings look like"

Howard Hodgkin, Artist

"If we fight our enemy using the same inhumane and morally bankrupt techniques that we are trying to stop, we will simply become what we have beheld"

Ed Markey, Politician

"Loomis has always felt himself responsible for the fact that he did not stop Michael when he first murdered his sister, and so he's got that guilt to live with"

Donald Pleasence, Actor

"I think by laying it out for the viewer I'm avoiding the issue of bias"

Dan Abrams, Journalist

"Pornography changes the attitudes and lifestyles of those who consume it, no matter how old a person is"

Donna Rice, Celebrity

"In my book, I specifically discussed the structural nature of injustice and offered Nine Touchstones of Goddess ethics as an alternative to the Ten Commandments of Biblical religion"

Carol P. Christ, Educator

"Some in journalism consider themselves apart from, and to some extent, above the people they purport to serve"

Brit Hume, Journalist

"It was repugnant, but it was the only way to communicate"

Alain Resnais, Director

"Since the generality of persons act from impulse, much more than from principle, men are neither so good nor so bad as we are apt to think them"

Augustus Hare, Writer

"Do you not see, first, that - as a mental abstract - physical force is directly opposed to morality; and secondly, that it practically drives out of existence the moral forces?"

Auberon Herbert, Philosopher

"In the industry, you do need some ethics - if one film does well, then thousands get work and money comes back to the industry. I guess the bottomline is, if there are two versions, then the better one will click"

Ajay Devgan, Actor

"Liberals tend to put the onus of your success on society and conservatives on you and your family"

Dennis Prager, Journalist

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