On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,–“But these impulses may be from below, not from above.” I replied, “They do...

The Sun would have wasted its life but for the evolution of life on earth. The one who gives should be grateful to the one who receives.

There is overwhelming evidence that certain mental disorders occur with much higher frequency among homosexuals.” For example, 40% of homosexual men have a history of major depression. That compares with only 3% for men in...

When we teach people that suspending moral judgments is a virtue, the necessary outcome is moral horror.

Moral issues rarely have yes or no answers.-Myles to Alanna when she asks about the Gift

It is less appealing, but morally more urgent, to understand the actions of the perpetrators. The moral danger, after all, is never that one might become a victim but that one might be a perpetrator...

If pimps and thieves were invariably sentenced, all decent people would get to thinking they themselves were constantly innocent.

The witness of solid moral character to a righteous way of life must never be underestimated.

Modern society, the political body, the legal and judiciary system, the state of governance, capitalism and the very fabric of the society itself, including our religions and so-called morals and values, are institutions steeped in...

It is always better to be a human than a lion in a world full of concrete jungle.

What responsibility are you avoiding…He wasn’t avoiding responsibility…Though there was one thing he clung to. An excuse, perhaps, like the dead emperor. It was the soul of the wretch. Apathy. The belief that nothing was...

In una parola, ero troppo codardo per fare quello che sapevo essere giusto, così come ero stato troppo codardo per evitare di fare quello che sapevo sbagliato. A quel tempo, non avevo avuto nessuna esperienza...

There was, I think, a prevailingimpression common to the provincial mind, that his misfortune wasthe result of the defective moral quality of his being a stranger.

The point of protesting about ‘moral equivalence’ is surely not to blur moral choices on ‘our side’. Is it?

Mtu yoyote anayedanganya ni Shetani, kwani Shetani ni baba wa uongo. Tusikubali kudanganywa ovyo, hasa watoto wetu, katika kipindi hiki cha utandawazi na teknolojia.

The idea that the bumps or depressions on a man’s head indicate the presence or absence of certain moral characteristics in his mental equipment is one of the absurdities developed from studies in this field...

What we now call “morality” was evolved – as nearly all social and physical human attributes were – to aid us in survival and, ultimately, reproduction. This morality requires only that we be guided by...

As a rule,I believe people shouldn’t follow rules;rules should follow people.

…all a guy can do is die once. The big difference is whether he dies clean – or dirty… (“I’m Dangerous Tonight”)

A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

My method is atheism. I find the atheistic outlook provides a favourable background for cosmopolitan practices. Acceptance of atheism at once pulls down caste and religious barriers between man and man. There is no longer...

Politics is merely war by other means.-an old Andorian saying

I have been made to realize tonight that there are limits to what I wish to do or see done for any cause.

Our best moral stories don’t tell us what is right or wrong in every situation, but they show us what one character did in one situation at one time. Readers, viewers, and listeners are supposed...

The great mistake of contemporary life is that we have made such a virtue of intellectual growth while almost totally ignoring the necessity of conscience growth. We have failed to understand that individual evolution can...

The good Lord wouldn’t have put it in your heart if it wasn’t right.

According to Melanie Klein, we develop moral responses in reaction to questions of survivability. My wager is that Klein is right about that, even as she thwarts her own insight by insisting that it is...

We have laws in our country that tell us not to murder or steal and we have police that enforce them. The question is whether you personally need the police to watch you. If they...

According to Adam One, the Fall of Man was multidimensional. The ancestral primates fell out of the trees; then they fell from vegetarianism into meat-eating. Then they fell from instinct into reason, and thus into...

All lines are gray in the dark.

If you study a historical episode and feel good about it, it probably means that you haven’t had it explained very well. Historical conflict is usually the struggle of different conceptions of what is good.

… ohne den Menschen etwas vorschreiben zu dürfen, würde die Moral gar kein Vergnügen bereiten.

The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.

Oh, what darkness does great prosperity cast over our minds!

for that men have been good does not suffice for them to continue being good, unless one cares about it to the end.

Wir lernen aus unserer eigenen Geschichte, wozu der Mensch fähig ist. Deshalb dürfen wir uns nicht einbilden, wir seien nun als Menschen anders und besser geworden. Es gibt keine endgültig errungene moralische Vollkommenheit – für...

The reason many are loathe to acknowledge the possibility of absolute truth is not simply because they do not wish to accept the possibility of the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing deity. It is because...

[O]ne person’s ‘barbarian’ is another person’s ‘just doing what everybody else is doing.

Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.

It took a couple of months before we were both convinced there were no rules about sexual activities in Hell and our spouses were not going to show up out of the blue. It was...

The moral high ground to which I aspired had turned into a slippery slope.

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee...

The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned

Be he the first to stand or the last, a man must stand,” the father had told his adoring son. “And if there is only one man, then that man must stand alone.” ~Thomas to...

In fact the “mask” theme has come up several times in my background reading. Richard Sennett, for example, in “The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism”, and Robert Jackall,...

If I am disobeying orders, I’d rather be with God against men than with men against God.

It is only when one is under extreme duress that one’s true character is revealed.

If you boil it down, just because someone else does the wrong thing we are not exempt from doing what’s right.

Morality is temporary, wisdom is permanent.