quotations about morality
In the slow but general moral advance certain men lag a little behind the rate if progress of the community as a whole; and where their own real or fancied interests are concerned, such men fail to recognize generally accepted standards of right and wrong until long after they have been recognized by the majority of their fellows.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
speech at Progressive Party Convention, Chicago, Illinois, June 17, 1912
Moral argument tries to appeal to a capacity for impartial motivation which is supposed to be present in all of us. Unfortunately it may be deeply buried, and in some cases it may not be present at all. In any case it has to compete with powerful selfish motives, and other personal motives that may not be so selfish, in its bid for control of our behavior. The difficulty of justifying morality is not that there is only one human motive, but that there are so many.
THOMAS NAGEL
What Does It All Mean?
Our world hinges on moral foundations. God has made it so. God has made the universe to be based on a moral law. So long as man disobeys it he is revolting against God. That's what we need in the world today: people who will stand for right and goodness. It's not enough to know the intricacies of zoology and biology, but we must know the intricacies of law. It is not enough to know that two and two makes four, but we've got to know somehow that it's right to be honest and just with our brothers. It's not enough to know all about our philosophical and mathematical disciplines, but we've got to know the simple disciplines of being honest and loving and just with all humanity. If we don't learn it, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own powers.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
sermon delivered at Detroit's Second Baptist Church, February 28, 1954
Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality -- which answers only to my heart -- is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.
BRANDON SANDERSON
The Way of Kings
Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.
ALEISTER CROWLEY
The Confessions of Aleister Crowley
Morality is the congruity and proportion that is between the actions of rational beings, and the objects of those actions.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
The highest stage in moral culture at which we can arrive, is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.
CHARLES DARWIN
The Descent of Man
The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.
JOEL STEIN
Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2006
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Jane Eyre
A man that puts himself on the ground of moral principle, if the whole world be against him, is mightier than all of them.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
"Immoral" is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
letter to Mr. B., March 27, 1848
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Yet one must also recognize that morality is based on ideas and that all ideas are dangerous--dangerous because ideas can only lead to action and where the action leads no man can say.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
Morality hides and covers, but never mortifies, nor cures the Corruptions of Nature; and mortified they must be, or you cannot be saved.
JOHN FLAVEL
The Whole Works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel
I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong.
LORD ACTON
The Study of History
Our moral faculties must be placed highest, else they can no more flourish than could a plant growing under the shade and drip of trees.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Morality is an utterly meaningless term unless defined as the good one does to others, the fulfilling of one's function in the sociopolitical whole.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Lathe of Heaven
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Sceptical Essays
Moral progress is a process of isolation; the mountain tops are lonely.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought