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Ethics Quotes

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief i...

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Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief i...

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Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

Good and evil both increase at compound interest.

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C. S. LewisMere Christianity

The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the ...

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An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate fou...

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The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.

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C. S. LewisThe Abolition of Man

the difference between the old and the new education being) in a word, the old was a kind of propaga...

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For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who ne...

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By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he ...

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No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the...

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C. S. LewisThe Abolition of Man

Relationships must be fostered as far as possible and maintained, and thus a morbid transference can...

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Could we possible manage the next phase of human history without first dealing with this penchant fo...

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Just take the weapon you hold in your hand and drive it through his heart," Valentine's voice was so...

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Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as ...

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The poison that is war does not free us from the ethics of responsibility. There are times when we m...

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Chris HedgesWar Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been ...

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We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On ever...

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About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to w...

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If a problem is irreversible, is there still an ethical obligation to try to reverse it?

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Chuck KlostermanBut What If We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past

Ethics and equity and the principles of justice do not change with the calendar.

The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and...

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D. H. LawrenceStudies in Classic American Literature

His moral lectureblazed with hate.What could have driven a child that far?

Transhumanism is the ethics and science of using things like biological and genetic engineering to t...

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The argument has long been made that we humans are by nature compassionate and empathic despite the ...

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Daniel GolemanSocial Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

The answer can't be found in books - or be solved by bringing it to other people. Not unless you wan...

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D
Daniel KeyesFlowers for Algernon

Nathan seemed to have absorbed his sense of journalistic ethics from old movies about newspaper repo...

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Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem ...

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David Foster WallaceConsider the Lobster and Other Essays

Is it possible that future generations will regard our present agribuisness and eating practices in ...

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True education does not consist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literatu...

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I knew how one climbing the mountain of worldly success can slip down into the river below without b...

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The limitation of the ethical phenomenon to its place and time does not imply its rejection but, on ...

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A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and sufferin...

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Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand...

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Principles are only tools in the hands of God they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer ...

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Due to some dim but irresistible notion of the way things are, it is simply not possible, out of ord...

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It is not at all surprising that the disciples imagined that the law had been abrogated, when Jesus ...

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Dietrich BonhoefferThe Cost of Discipleship

Despite the fact that an Indonesian island chicken has probably had a much more natural life than on...

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But with dogs, we do have "bad dog." Bad dog exists. "Bad dog! Bad dog! Stole a biscuit, bad dog!" T...

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Although we cannot attain Jesus in his fullness unless at the same time we also take into account hi...

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Edward SchillebeeckxJesus In Our Western Culture: Mysticism

We'd do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn't defend us; we defend the law. A...

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The man who is anybody and who does anything is surely going to be criticized vilified and misunde...

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There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when w...

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If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done anything? They should u...

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The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the 'Super', i.e. the hydrogen ...

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It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings pro...

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Ethical principles stand above the existence of the nation and that by adhering to these principles ...

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Our creed [atheism] is indeed a queer creed. You others, Christians (and similar people), consider o...

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By the way, I never realized that to be nonbelieving, to be an atheist, was a thing to be proud of. ...

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Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.

We're coming down to an extremely unethical society. Very few colleges offer courses in ethics, and ...

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Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual regard, unless each of u...

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Principles are what people have instead of God.To be a Christian means among other things to be will...

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Frederick BuechnerWishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

Morality is neither rational nor absolute nor natural. World has known many moral systems, each of w...

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To be incapable of taking one’s enemies, one’s accidents, even one’s misdeeds seriously for very lon...

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I obviously do everything to be "hard to understand" myself

One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. "Good" is no longer good when one's neigh...

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A man who wills commands something within himself that renders obedience, or that he believes render...

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It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposi...

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Counsel involving right and wrong should never be sought from a man who does not say his prayers.

Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive. They are too often prai...

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Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to ...

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Our Blessed Lord left the world without leaving any written message. His doctrine was Himself. Ideal...

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A spirit of license makes a man refuse to commit himself to any standards. The right time is the way...

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Fulton J. SheenOn Being Human: Reflections on Life and Living

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions ...

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An election is a moral horror as bad as a battle except for the blood a mud bath for every soul co...

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Seek not that your sons and your daughters should not see visions, should not dream dreams; seek tha...

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For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or th...

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Morality consists in this for each individual: to attempt each time to extend its region of clear ex...

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Knowing your limits, and that there is a limit to getting what you want, comes from a sense of self-...

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I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.

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Graham GreeneThe Quiet American

He was impregnably armored by his good intentions and his ignorance.

Picture of Graham Greene
Graham GreeneThe Quiet American

We have a special name, here, for a certain kind of failure to defer to the greater good—for putting...

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From the ethical point of view, no one can escape responsibility with the excuse that he is only an ...

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Moral indignation - jealousy with a halo.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong and that 99% of them are w...

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Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and great...

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H. L. MenckenThe Artist: A Drama Without Words

Experience cannot beat logic, and interpretations of observational evidence which are not in line wi...

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Hans-Hermann HoppeThe Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy

So the next thing I assume I'll be hearing from Republicans, they want to change rules some way, as ...

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Like it or not, it's the society we live in. Even the standard of right and wrong has been subdivide...

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Pure analysis puts at our disposal a multitude of procedures whose infallibility it guarantees; it o...

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You cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that which shocks you.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. So aim above morality. Be not simply g...

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What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

In just about every area of society, there's nothing more important than ethics.

An artist owed a duty to nothing except his own irresponsibility. It was OK for an artist to frolic ...

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I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful co...

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This place is like the Army: the shark ethic prevails--eat the wounded. In a closed society where ev...

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Hunter S. ThompsonFear and Loathing in Las Vegas

The modern period adds social ethics to religions agenda, for we now realize that social structures ...

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On the other hand, the moral law, although it gives no such prospect, does provide a fact absolutely...

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By this freedom the will of a rational being, as belonging to the sensuous world, recognizes itself ...

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The true religion is to be posited not in the knowledge or confession of what God allegedly does or ...

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The whole interest of my reason, whether speculative or practical, is concentrated in the three foll...

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Human beings are never to be treated as a means but always as ends.

In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being adapted suitably to the purpose...

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Immanuel KantFundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

[It] is nevertheless better than the theological concept, of deriving morality from a divine, all-pe...

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Immanuel KantGroundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

What is more, we cannot do morality a worse service than by seeing to derive it from examples. Every...

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Picture of Immanuel Kant
Immanuel KantGroundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals