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Quotes about morality

501 quotes from 241 people

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One must have faith in the best in men and distrust the worst. One must allow the best to be shown so that it reveals and prevails over the worst.
José Martí1853–1895Our America (1891)
- Good & Evil
I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme, not from the presence of any grander scheme.
Joss Whedonborn 1964“Joss Whedon: Atheist & Absurdist”, comments made in a Q&A-session in Australia, while promoting his movie Serenity (2005)
- Atheism
We must not indulge in unfavourable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe that they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain.
Walter Savage Landor1775–1864Imaginary Conversations (1824-1829), “Barrow and Newton”
No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human beast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.
Sigmund Freud1856–1939Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905), his analysis of the case of Ida Bauer (also translated as Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria)
- Good & Evil
The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.
Hannah Arendt1906–1975Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), Epilogue
- Good & Evil
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
Jeremy Bentham1748–1832An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789; 1823), Ch. 1: Of the Principle of Utility
- Philosophy
In a free society, it is hard for “good” people to do “good,” but that is a small price to pay for making it hard for “evil” people to do “evil,” especially since one man’s good is another’s evil.
Milton Friedman1912–2006“The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”, The New York Times Magazine (13 September 1970)
- Freedom
- Good & Evil
America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world.
George H. W. Bush1924–2018George H. W. Bush’s Inaugural Address (1989)
- America
Here was a place where men and life and death had reached the lowest form of degradation. How could any reward in national progress even faintly justify the establishment and operation of such a place?
Charles Lindbergh1902–1974After visiting the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in Germany, as quoted in The New York Times (20 April 1980)
- Good & Evil
- War & Peace
Not even the apparently enlightened principle of the ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ can excuse indifference to individual suffering. There is no test for progress other than its impact on the individual.
Aneurin Bevan1897–1960In Place of Fear (1952), pp. 167-168
- Philosophy
There are depths in man which go down the length of the lowest Hell, as there are heights which reach the highest Heaven; — for are not both Heaven and Hell made out of him, everlasting Miracle and Mystery that he is?
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881The French Revolution. A History (1837), Pt. III, Bk. I, ch. 4.
- Good & Evil
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
John Stuart Mill1806–1873Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St. Andrews, Feb. 1st 1867 (1867) p. 36.
- Good & Evil
- Responsibility
The moral improvement of the nations and their individual components has not kept pace with the march of intellect and the advance of industry.
Felix Adler1851–1933Founding Address (1876)
I don’t think business should only deal in commercial things. Business, to me, is nothing more than a collection of people. If people have values, then companies should.
Tim Cookborn 1960CNBC: “Apple’s Tim Cook shares a rule that leaders should live by” (26 June 2018)
- Business
If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
John Adams1735–1826A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88), vol. 3, ch. 1
- Laws