Moral Quotes - Page 9

• Without making any moral judgements whatsoever, one can say that self-indulgence and excessive self-preoccupation are the antithesis of genuine awareness.

  Ronald Rolheiser

  Moral Judgement, Self, Awareness

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• As a society we can't live without moral considerations. We do have to protect the public good. And markets are not designed to do that, so we need a political process.

  George Soros

  Political, Needs, Consideration

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• If we knew that god exists, such knowledge would make morality impossible. For, if we acted morally from fear or fright, or confident of a reward, then this would not be moral. It would be enlightened selfishness.

  Immanuel Kant

  Selfishness, Would Be, Rewards

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• As is well known, all collectors are prepared to steal or murder if it is a question of getting another piece for their collection; but this does not lower their moral character in the least.

  Karel Capek

  Character, Doe, Pieces

  Karel Capek, M. Weatherall, R. Weatherall (1996). “War with the Newts”, p.166, Northwestern University Press

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• Three qualities of greatness stood out in Woodrow Wilson. He was a man of staunch morals. He was more than just an idealist; he was the personification of the heritage of idealism of the American people. He brought spiritual concepts to the peace table. He was a born crusader.

  Herbert Hoover

  Spiritual, Greatness, Men

  Herbert Hoover (1992). “The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson”, p.27, Woodrow Wilson Center Press

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• We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground. From there we can shoot down at our enemies and inflict heavy fatalities.

  Salman Rushdie

  Thinking, Moral High Ground, Giving

  "Raging from the moral highground" by Ian Sansom, www.theguardian.com. August 11, 2000.

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• What's the use of talking? You can see for yourself that this is a barbarous country; the people have no morals; and the boredom!

  Anton Chekhov

  Country, Talking, People

  Anton Chekhov (2008). “Ten Plays”, p.311, Courier Corporation

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• I have the financial morals of a goldfish, I can resist everything but temptation.

  Ruth St. Denis

  Temptation, Goldfish, Financial

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• Moral standards cannot be changed by battle and cannot be changed by ballot.

  Boyd K. Packer

  Battle, Standards, Changed

  "Cleansing the Inner Vessel". Boyd K. Packer's address at the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, www.lds.org. October 2010.

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• Go through the moral demands...one by one and you will find that man could not live up to them; the intention is not that he should become more moral, but that he should feel as sinful as possible. If man had failed to find this feeling pleasant - why should he have engendered such an idea and adhered to it for so long?... Man was by every means to be made sinful and thereby become excited, animated, enlivened in general. To excite, animate, enliven at any price.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Mean, Men, Ideas

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• I've been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that's kind of a religious belief. I mean, it's at least a moral belief.

  Bill Gates

  Religious, Mean, Trying

  "Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview". Interview with Jeff Goodell, www.rollingstone.com. March 13, 2014.

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• The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important.

  Bill Gates

  Thinking, Important

  "Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview". Interview with Jeff Goodell, www.rollingstone.com. March 13, 2014.

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• Ideally, government is the means by which all the individual wills are assured complete freedom of moral choice and at the same time prevented from ever clashing.

  W. H. Auden

  Mean, Government, Choices

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• The moral sense is a natural faculty in us like the sense of smell or of touch.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Smell, Natural, Faculty

  Peter Kropotkin (2012). “Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings”, p.98, Courier Corporation

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• When you're going into an employment environment that looks pretty scary, it is easy to lose your moral compass, your decency, your sense of civility and your sense of community.

  Henry Rollins

  Scary, Community, Looks

  "A 60 Second Commencement Address" by Henry Rollins, bigthink.com. 2017.

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• That Newt Gingrich or any mainstream Republican has the nerve to look down from what they perceive as their moral mountaintop at anyone is laughable.

  Henry Rollins

  Nerves, Looks, Republican

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• For many years, I tried to make New Year's resolutions. I made lists and shot for great heights: I would show altruism and exert moral strength, patience and all those other great attributes.

  Henry Rollins

  New Year, Years, Height

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• We have advanced far enough to say that democracy is a way of life. We have yet to realize that it is a way of personal life and one which provides a moral standard for personal conduct.

  John Dewey

  Democracy, Way, Realizing

  John Dewey, Debra Morris, Ian Shapiro (1993). “The Political Writings”, p.229, Hackett Publishing

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• We are inclined to confuse freedom and democracy, which we regard as moral principles, with the way in which they are practiced in America with capitalism, federalism, and the two-party system, which are not moral principles but simply the preferred and accepted practices of the American people.

  J. William Fulbright

  Party, Practice, Two

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• The unhealthy gap between what we preach in America and what we often practice creates a moral dry rot that eats at the very foundation of our democratic ideals and values.

  Whitney M. Young

  Practice, Democratic Ideals, America

  Whitney M. Young (1964). “To be equal”

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• Book CoverTo have people who are well informed but not constrained by conscience is conceivably, the most dangerous outcome of education possible. Indeed it could be argued that ignorance is better than unguided intelligence, for the most dangerous people are those who have knowledge without a moral framework.

  Ernest L. Boyer

  Book, Ignorance, People

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• Every right is married to a duty; every freedom owes a corresponding responsibility; and there cannot be genuine freedom unless there exists also genuine order, in the moral realm and in the social realm.

  Russell Kirk

  Responsibility, Order, Married

  Russell Kirk (1996). “Redeeming the Time”, Isi Books

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• The image is not a medium for which we have to find the proper use. It is what it is and it is beyond all our moral considerations. It is by its essence immoral, and the world's becoming-image is an immoral process.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Essence, Becoming, Use

  Jean Baudrillard, Peter Weibel (1999). “Fotografien”, Hatje Cantz Pub

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• Our very sense of situation is now articulated by the camera's interventions. The omnipresence of cameras persuasively suggests that time consists of interesting events, events worth photographing. This, in turn, makes it easy to feel that any event, once underway, and whatever its moral character, should be allowed to complete itself - so that something else can be brought into the world, the photograph.

  Susan Sontag

  Character, Interesting, Cameras

  Susan Sontag (2011). “On Photography”, p.12, Macmillan

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• The suburban West is, from a moral perspective, depressing evidence that we have misused our freedom. There is, however, another aspect to the landscape, an unexpected glory. Over the cheap tracts and littered arroyos one sometimes see a light as clean as that recorded by O'Sullivan. Since it owes nothing to our care, it is an assurance; beauty is final.

  Robert Adams

  Depressing, Light, Perspective

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