Morality Quotes - Page 4

• Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Men, Long, Decorum

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook B 12, 1799.

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• It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.

  Margaret Mead

  Fear, Fog, Punishment

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• The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Religion, Ordinary

  Sceptical Essays

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• The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying.

  Thomas Huxley

  Life, Success, Trust

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.146, Cambridge University Press

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• It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.

  Anatole France

  Life, Nature, Believe

  Anatole France (2015). “The Revolt of the Angels: Works by France”, p.130, 谷月社

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• The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Pride, Vanity, Differences

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• There is no such thing as morality or immorality in thought. There is immoral emotion.

  Oscar Wilde

  Emotion, Immorality, Immoral

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.437, University of Chicago Press

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• I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.

  Albert Einstein

  Humble, Reality, Understanding

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• Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths . . . ?

  George Washington

  Religious, Religion, Desert

  George Washington (1837). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations”, p.227

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• "Taste is not only a part and index of morality, it is the only morality. The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is "What do you like?" Tell me what you like, I'll tell you what you are."

  John Ruskin

  Lasts, Taste, Firsts

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• The soul is the captain and ruler of the life of morals.

  Sallust

  Soul, Captains, Rulers

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• Rough Johnson, the great moralist.

  Lord Byron

  Rough, Johnson, Moralist

  Lord Byron (2015). “Don Juan”, p.279, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• The moral system of the universe is like a document written in alternate ciphers, which change from line to line.

  James Anthony Froude

  Ciphers, Lines, Documents

  James Anthony Froude (2004). “Short Studies on Great Subjects”, p.6, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• It is difficult to offend a New Yorker.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Difficult, New Yorkers

  Alan M. Dershowitz (1983). “The Best Defense”, Vintage

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• Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers.

  Samuel Butler

  Country, Feelings, Peers

  Samuel Butler (2014). “The Notebooks of Samuel Butler”, p.48, The Floating Press

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• Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.

  Denis Diderot

  Country, Europe, Government

  "Selected Writings". Book by Lester G. Crocker, 1966.

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• We moralize among ruins.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Ruins

  Benjamin Disraeli (1847). “Works”, p.257

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• However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Men, Evil, Middle Path

  Wilhelm von Humboldt (2008). “The Limits of State Action”, p.134, Cambridge University Press

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• Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

  Immanuel Kant

  Happiness, Happy, Sound Doctrine

  "Critique of Practical Reason". Book by Immanuel Kant, 1788.

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• In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.

  James Russell Lowell

  Ocean, Literature, Easier

  James Russell Lowell (1845). “Conversations on Some of the Old Poets”, p.61

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

  John Adams

  Religious, Revenge, Passion

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.229

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• Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.

  Aldous Huxley

  Fear, Liberty, Politics

  Aldous Huxley (2000). “Complete Essays: 1926-1929”, Ivan R Dee

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• I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.

  Seneca the Younger

  Peace, Home, Character

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.

  William James

  War, Volunteer, Political

  William James (2013). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.45, Courier Corporation

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• It is safe to say that no other superstition is so detrimental to growth, so enervating and paralyzing to the minds and hearts of the people, as the superstition of Morality.

  Emma Goldman

  Heart, People, Growth

  Emma Goldman (2016). “Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926”, p.95, PM Press

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