Ethical Quotes - Page 29

• What is the relationship between spirituality and ethical practice? Since love and compassion and similar qualities all, by definition, presume some level of concern for others' well-being, they presume ethical restraint. We cannot be loving and compassionate unless at the same time we curb our own harmful impulses and desires.

  Dalai Lama

  Compassion, Practice, Concern For Others

  The Dalai Lama (2012). “The Essence Of Wisdom”, p.10, Hachette UK

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• But though Usury is in itself immoral, and justly condemned by every ethical code, its chief and worst defect in the particular case we are now examining, the growth of Capitalism and its increasing proletariat, is the centralization of irresponsible control over the lives of men: the putting power over the proletariat into the hands of a few who can direct the loans of currency and credit without which that proletariat could not be fed and clothed and maintained in work.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Wisdom, Men, Hands

  Hilaire Belloc (2016). “The Crisis Of Civilization”, p.96, TAN Books

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• Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Economist, Profession

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• It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.

  Zadie Smith

  Moving, People, Paper

  "Love, actually" by Zadie Smith, www.theguardian.com. October 31, 2003.

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• Faith exalts the human heart, by removing it from the market-place, making it sacred and unexchangeable. Under the jurisdiction of religion our deeper feelings are sacralized, so as to become raw material for the ethical life: the life lived in judgement.

  Roger Scruton

  Heart, Judgement, Feelings

  Roger Scruton (2013). “Modern Culture”, p.91, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• The ethical life... is maintained in being by a common culture, which also upholds the togetherness of society... Unlike the modern youth culture, a common culture sanctifies the adult state, to which it offers rites of passage.

  Roger Scruton

  Modern Youth, Adults, Culture

  Roger Scruton (2006). “Modern Culture”, p.127, A&C Black

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• Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways.

  Franz Boas

  Ethical Standards, Good Man, Way

  Foreword to "Coming of Age in Samoa" by Margaret Mead, 1928.

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• We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).

  Sam Harris

  Father, Teaching, Night

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• Here is my challenge. Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first - I have been asking it for some time - awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Faith, Religious, Thinking

  "An Atheist Responds" by Christopher Hitchens, www.washingtonpost.com. July 14, 2007.

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• A kernel of truth lurks at the heart of religion, because spiritual experience, ethical behavior, and strong communities are essential for human happiness. And yet our religious traditions are intellectually defunct and politically ruinous. While spiritual experience is clearly a natural propensity of the human mind, we need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to actualize it.

  Sam Harris

  Spiritual, Religious, Strong

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.221, W. W. Norton & Company

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• It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

  Albert Einstein

  Death, Religious, Atheist

  "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930.

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• Only he is a truly ethical, a truly human being, who has the courage to see through his own religious feelings and needs.

  Ludwig Feuerbach

  Religious, Feelings, Atheism

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• The ethical view of the universe involves us in so many cruel and absurd contradictions that I have come to suspect that the aim of creation cannot be ethical at all.

  Joseph Conrad

  Views, Atheism, Creation

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “Under Western Eyes (Unabridged Deluxe Edition): An Intriguing Tale of Espionage and Betrayal in Czarist Russia From the Renowned Author of Heart of Darkness, Nostromo & The Secret Agent (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)”, p.346, e-artnow

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• Art is realistic when it strives to express an ethical ideal. Realism is striving for truth, and truth is always beautiful. Here the aesthetic coincides with the ethical.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Beautiful, Art, Truth Is

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 113), 1986.

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• Whenever governments adopt a moral tone - as opposed to an ethical one - you know something is wrong.

  John Ralston Saul

  Government, Tone, Morality

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.108, Simon and Schuster

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• I'm a fan of Hugh Kenner, Richard Ellman, Lionel Trilling and Frank Kermode. All these people have taught me how to read - but perhaps, above all literary critics, I'm indebted to Wayne Booth (several people have suggested to me that I'm trying to reinvent "ethical criticism").

  Philip Kitcher

  People, Criticism, Trying

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Were we incapable of empathy – of putting ourselves in the position of others and seeing that their suffering is like our own – then ethical reasoning would lead nowhere. If emotion without reason is blind, then reason without emotion is impotent.

  Peter Singer

  Empathy, Suffering, Emotion

  "Writings on an Ethical Life". Book by Peter Singer, November 21, 2000.

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• I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life, and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.

  Temple Grandin

  Animal, Thinking, Giving

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice.

  Karen Armstrong

  Life, Change, Truth

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• We all have our moments. But you can switch it around. Then you've got the activist type who bases their decisions in the development of a character on what it symbolizes to society - what the ethical code is.

  Michelle Rodriguez

  Character, Decision, Development

  Interview with Milla Jovovich, www.interviewmagazine.com. January 12, 2015.

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• The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God (which, we must note, was addressed specifically to perennial problems in political morality), then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man (or men) — the standard of self-law or autonomy.

  Greg L. Bahnsen

  Men, Self, Expression

  "By This Standard: The Authority of God's Law Today".

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• Saying someone is religious is heard in most of America as a compliment, a reassuring affirmation that someone will be moral, ethical, and after a few glasses of wine, a freak in the bedroom.

  Bill Maher

  Religious, Wine, Glasses

  Bill Maher (2003). “When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism”, New Millenium

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• A lot of people have culturally induced ethical blindness, but they can be cured!

  Ingrid Newkirk

  People, Blindness

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• Ethical inquiry has always been motivated by the aim of improving human conduct. It doesn't follow from that that the goal is to produce a complete rule book that would be applicable to all cases.

  Philip Kitcher

  Book, Goal, Would Be

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Kantian ethical theory distinguishes three levels: First, that of a fundamental principle (the categorical imperative, formulated in three main ways in Kant's Groundwork); second, a set of duties, not deduced from but derived from this principle, by way of its interpretation or specification, its application to the general conditions of human life - which Kant does in the Doctrine of virtue, the second main part of the Metaphysics of Morals; and then finally an act of judgment, through which these duties are applied to particular cases.

  Allen W. Wood

  Principles, Doe, Doctrine

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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