Morality Quotes - Page 27

• We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Stupid, Selfish

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• If we are defined by reason and morality, then reason and morality must define our choices, even when animals are concerned. When people say, for example, that they like their veal or hot dogs too much to ever give them up, and yeah it's sad about the farms but that's just the way it is, reason hears in that the voice of gluttony. We can say that what makes a human being human is precisely the ability to understand that the suffering of an animal is more important than the taste of a treat.

  Matthew Scully

  Dog, Animal, Voice

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• Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Evil, Words Of Wisdom, Ethics

  Michel de Montaigne (1991). “The essays of Michel de Montaigne”, Lane, Allen

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• The alcoholic and the drug addict harm only themselves by their behavior; the person who violates the rules of morality governing mans life in society harms not only himself, but everyone.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Drug, Behavior, Harm

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Liberalism: The Classical Tradition: The Economist”, p.22, VM eBooks

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• My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.

  Frank Herbert

  Father, Thinking, Profound

  Frank Herbert (2003). “Dune”, p.185, Penguin

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• Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Unhappy, Trying, Depth

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• If theft is advantageous to everyone who succeeds at it, and adultery is a good strategy, at least for males, for increasing presence in the gene pool, why do we feel they are wrong? Shouldn't the only morality that evolution produces be the kind Bill Clinton had - being sorry you got caught?

  Robert J. Sawyer

  Sorry, Males, Bills

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• And the west, encumbered by crippling alliances, and hardened with a morality too rigid to accommodate itself to the swing of events, must ..... eventually ..... fall.

  Edward Albee

  Fall, Swings, Events

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• He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals

  Henry Miller

  Farce, Leprosy, Saws

  Henry Miller (1962). “The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud”, p.156, New Directions Publishing

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• Morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct.

  Penelope Fitzgerald

  Safe, Guides, Humans

  Penelope Fitzgerald (1978). “The Bookshop”, p.100, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Teaching at best beckons us to morality, but it is not in itself efficacious. Teaching is like a mirror. It can show you if your face is dirty, but it the mirror will not wash your face.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Dirty, Teaching, Mirrors

  FaceBook post by Ravi Zacharias from Jan 27, 2014

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• Sometimes carrying the burden of an upsetting truth, and hiding it, is actually a gift you give to someone else. You bear that burden, so they don’t have to, in a situation where telling them will change nothing.

  Cassandra Clare

  Giving, Upset, Bears

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• There can be as many wrong reasons to do the right thing as there are stars in the sky. There might even be more than one legitimate right reason. But there is never a right reason to do the wrong thing. Not ever.

  Donita K. Paul

  Stars, Sky, Might

  Donita K. Paul (2008). “DragonKnight: A Novel”, p.44, WaterBrook

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• Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

  Edmund Burke

  Liberty, Doe, Absence

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• There is no tyranny more ferocious than the tyranny of morality. Everything is sacrificed to it.

  P.D. Ouspensky

  Tyranny

  P. D. Ouspensky (2004). “Tertium Organum: A Key to the Enigmas of the World”, p.229, Book Tree

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• But all morality is of necessity shaped by context. I'm not talking relativism, no. To ignore the context of a decision is in fact immoral.

  Anne Rice

  Talking, Decision, Facts

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• Life is two things. Life is morality – life is adventure. Squire and master. Adventure rules, and morality looks up the trains in the Bradshaw. Morality tells you what is right, and adventure moves you. If morality means anything it means keeping bounds, respecting implications, respecting implicit bounds. If individuality means anything it means breaking bounds – adventure.

  H. G. Wells

  Moving, Adventure, Mean

  H. G. Wells (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of H. G. Wells”, p.3014, Delphi Classics

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• Morality, then, is not a set of arbitrary regulations dictated by a vengeful deity and written down in a book; nor is it the custom of a particular culture or tribe. It is a consequence of the interchangeability of perspectives and the opportunity the world provides for positive-sum games.

  Steven Pinker

  Book, Opportunity, Games

  Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.211, Penguin

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• Morality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.

  Khushwant Singh

  People, Matter, Poor

  Khushwant Singh (2009). “Train to Pakistan”, p.39, Penguin Books India

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• The morality of customs,the spirit of the laws, produces the man emancipated from the law.

  Gilles Deleuze

  Men, Law, Spirit

  Gilles Deleuze (2006). “Nietzsche and Philosophy”, p.128, A&C Black

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• The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.

  John Adams

  Foundation

  John Adams (2004). “The Portable John Adams”, p.75, Penguin

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• We are on strike against martyrdom—and against the moral code that demands it. We are on strike against those who believe that one man must exist for the sake of another. We are on strike against the morality of cannibals, be it practiced in body or in spirit. We will not deal with men on any terms but ours—and our terms are a moral code which holds that man is an end in himself and not the means to any end of others.

  Ayn Rand

  Believe, Mean, Men

  Ayn Rand (1957). “Atlas Shrugged”, E P Dutton

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• More than a decade ago, a Supreme Court decision literally wiped off the books of fifty states statutes protecting the rights of unborn children. Abortion on demand now takes the lives of up to 1.5 million unborn children a year. Human life legislation ending this tragedy will some day pass the Congress, and you and I must never rest until it does. Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected.

  Ronald Reagan

  Children, Book, Pursuit Of Happiness

  Remarks at the Annual Convention of the the National Association of Evangelicals, delivered 8 March 1983, Orlando, Florida

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• Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is in getting them clean again, and therein lies the whole morality of our epoch.

  Honore de Balzac

  Art, Lying, Real

  Honore de Balzac (2015). “Old Goriot: Classic French Literature”, p.90, 谷月社

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• He wasn't evil as much as magnificently innocent of any kind of morality.

  Jim Butcher

  Evil, Kind, Innocent

  Jim Butcher (2003). “Death Masks: Book five of The Dresden Files”, p.111, Penguin Group

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