morals

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
0413dd8	Top 15 Things Money Can't Bu	money time integrity character trust inspiration inspirational-quotes life-quotes happiness life love inspirational common-sense class manners inner-peace dignity health respect morals patience	Roy T. Bennett
f8ed335	So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.	wrong right-and-wrong right morals	Ernest Hemingway
c7256ab	Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base though.	morality morals	Richard Dawkins
7ffe76d	Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals.	friends company deceit morals	Anonymous
b9c6c18	"The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. (from "Rediscovering Lost Values")" --	universe morals physics values	Martin Luther King Jr.
4b8e679	The answer is that there is no good answer. So as parents, as doctors, as judges, and as a society, we fumble through and make decisions that allow us to sleep at night--because morals are more important than ethics, and love is more important than law.	love law ethics decisions morals	Jodi Picoult
9ee3607	"War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against" whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the "right" side and therefore will win. Right makes might."	war morality right-and-wrong morals	Ursula K. Le Guin
ad1d043	He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals	religion science nationalism morals	Henry Miller
9210866	Second, the reason to embrace and celebrate these novels as the countercultural event that they are is due largely to the subliminal messages delivered by Harry and friends in their stolen wheelbarrows. Readers walk away, maybe a little softer on the occult than they were, but with story-embedded messages: the importance of a pure soul; love's power even over death; about sacrifice and loyalty; a host of images and shadows about Christ and how essential 'right belief' is for personal transformation and victory over internal and external evils.	harry-potter lessons morals	John Granger
3761e05	"War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against" whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off."	good-and-evil war life ethics morals	Ursula K. Le Guin
d97909d	There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt.	injustice morality innocent law innocence justice guilt morals values	Ayn Rand
33f2ad6	By definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange - meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities. This is what the television news is all about. Unfortunately there is so much original sin in us all that we find evil rather attractive. To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create.	good morality moral-compass morals evil sin	Anthony Burgess
4ffdb37	"Someone once said that nothing costs more and yields less benefit than revenge," Aomame said. "Winston Churchill. As I recall it, though, he was making excuses for the British Empire's budget deficits. It has no moral significance."	revenge murakami morals	Haruki Murakami
1308606	The widespread assumption that ethical behavior takes the fun out of life is false. In actuality, living ethically ensures that relationships in our lives, including encounters with strangers, nurture our spiritual growth.	fun love growth morals	Bell Hooks
aba1792	Is it possible that future generations will regard our present agribuisness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero's entertainments or Mengele's experiments? My own initial reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme - and yet the reason it seems extreme to me appears to be that I believe animals are less morally important than human behings; and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I haven't succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient.	animal-rights ethics morals	David Foster Wallace
a6a9d57	Every living creature on the earth is special. You want to be the one that puts an end to one of them?	morals	Sue Monk Kidd
5854480	I was only twelve. But I knew how much I loved her. It was that love that comes before all significance of body and morals. It was that love that was no more bad than wind and sea and sand lying side by side forever. It was made of all the warm long days together at the beach, and the humming quiet days of droning education at the school. All the long Autumn days of the years past when I carried her books home from school.	education love beach october forever fall child morals school	Ray Bradbury
61f9111	Greaser ' didn't have anything to do with it. My buddy over there wouldn't have done it. Maybe you would have done the same thing, maybe a friend of yours wouldn't have. It's the individual.	individuality morality morals	S.E. Hinton
bf61ade	If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables?	parables morals stories	Thomas Hardy
71ee545	If an action must be taken that will benefit the majority at the cost of the minority, is it morally indefensible? If an action taken for the benefit of a majority occurs at the expense of a minority, is it moral action?	benefit shades-children garth-nix majority minority shade morals	Garth Nix
0598558	As readers, we are seldom interested in the fine sentiments of a lesson learnt; we seldom care about the good manners of morals. Repentance puts an end to conversation; forgiveness becomes the stuff of moralistic tracts. Revenge - bloodthirsty, justice-hungry revenge - is the very essence of romance, lying at the heart of much of the best fiction.	revenge romance repentance forgiveness readers morals	Alberto Manguel
ec6aba3	We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We no longer have to be brought into line by the threat of hell or the promise of paradise; we merely have to be reminded that it is we ourselves -- that is, the most mature and reasonable parts of us (seldom present in the midst of our crises and obsessions) -- who want to lead the sort of life which we once imagined supernatural beings demanded of us. An adequate evolution of morality from superstition to reason should mean recognizing ourselves as the authors of our own moral commandments.	morality reason god life commandments superstition morals	Alain de Botton
667b300	Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think - not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment - on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is.	virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
958e313	Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.	virtue man mind good morality choice reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
933ec87	The Golden Rule is intolerable; if millions did to others whatever they wished others to do to them, few would be safe from molestation. The Golden Rule shows anything but moral genius, and the claim by which it is followed in the Sermon on the Mount -- 'this is the Law and the Prophets' -- makes little sense.	jesus morality golden-rule morals	Walter Kaufmann
bd730a0	These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness	virtue history good morality goodness faith religion religious belief-systems dune-arrakis dune-house-atreides evil-men falsehoods justice-of-god dune-messiah dune moral-law religion-philosophy falsehood historical-perspective history-of-thought history-of-mankind belief-system religion-spirituality religious-faith historical beliefs religions moral virtues morals evil	Frank Herbert
3a71a5f	Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.	virtue pain man mind good independence morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
3297c43	Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness--to value the failure of your values--is an insolent negation of morality.	virtue man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
6659a53	You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.	sacrifice life philosophy john-galt morals values	Ayn Rand
e8a2879	Morality--like velocity--is relative. The determination of it depends on what the objects around you are doing. All one can do is measure one's position in relation to them; never can one measure one's velocity or morality in terms of absolutes.	relativity ethics morals	David Gerrold
c081d7c	Is lawlessness to be permitted, simply because it is effected with a certain style? Jane, Jane! Where are your finer sensibilities? All o'erthrown, by a man with a golden tongue and a mocking glance?	morals	Stephanie Barron
0d060f8	This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity--that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself--and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!	vegetarianism morals	Leo Tolstoy
90023d5	[At the scene of a murder] The cats' bloodthirst was normal; it was the way God had made them. They were hunters, they killed for food and to train their young--well maybe sometimes for sport. But this violent act by some unknown human had nothing to do with hunting--for a human to brutally maim one of the own kind out of rage or sadism or greed was, to Joe and Dulcie (the cats), a shocking degradation of the human condition. To imagine that vicious abandon in a human deeply distressed Dulcie; she did not like thinking about humans that way.	murder human-condition ethics morals	Shirley Rousseau Murphy
4c555ad	Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders' attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.	virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
a514c2b	Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.	virtue man mind existence morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think consciousness thinking morals values	Ayn Rand
d4aa10e	Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking--that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action--that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise--that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality--that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind--that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one's consciousness.	virtue pain man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
2a88546	"Ozorne, please don't let him try to make me into a battle mage. I wish you'd told me that's what you wanted." Arram stopped and grabbed his friend by the arms. "I won't do it. I'm not a killer. I'll never be a killer."	killing murder battle-mage ozorne numair killer morals	Tamora Pierce
15313ec	I never swear, Monseigneur. I say Yes or No, and as I am a gentleman, I keep my word.	gentleman word honor morals	Alexandre Dumas
9c425e3	Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies...It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.	virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
080da54	How would that premise stand up if he examined it? That was probably why the Communists were always cracking down on Bohemiansism. When you were drunk or when you committed adultery you recognised your own personal fallability of that so mutable substitute for the apostles' creed, the party line. Down with Bohemianism, the sin of Majakowski.	religion drink morals communism	Ernest Hemingway
6d01c62	...I realized that my father, of all these men, was the most obstinate, helplessly bonded to his better instincts and their excessive demands. I only then understood that he had quit his job not merely because he was fearful of what awaited us down the line should we agree like the others to be relocated, but because, for better or worse, when he was bullied by superior forces that he deemed corrupt it was his nature not to yield--in this instance, to resist either running away to Canada, as my mother urged our doing, or bowing to a government directive that was patently unjust. There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty And Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.	morals fair-play instincts mores obstinacy standards fairness	Philip Roth
cb8ea17	You can take your gold, but afterwards, things are, things are . There is less beauty in a rainbow, less meaning in a sermon, less joy in a kiss...Less.	morals folklore	Neil Gaiman
ec98d0f	If there is a moral to this part of the story, and I distrust morals in the same way that I distrust beginnings, it is simply this: know that with which you deal.	morals	Neil Gaiman
36f1176	Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to be the Light of the world. Buddhism was born with a disgust for the world, when a prince's son deserted his wife and child, turning from the pleasures of existence to the problems of existence. Burnt by the fires of the world, and already weary with it, Buddha turned to ethics.	buddhism ethics morals	Fulton J. Sheen
1dd1c69	"Referring to Jumper the spider, who needs to hide himself in human form, and he's learning to act like a human. "I'm sure I can learn to walk faster than that," he said desperately. "But you'll also need to learn the nuances of human behavior. Such as not going around naked." "What's wrong with being natural?" he demanded. "Humans aren't natural. They are girt about by all manner of conventions. It will take time for you to catch up with them all."	spiders morals	Piers Anthony
29e603b	The moral high ground is a lovely place. It won't stop a missile, though. It won't alter the trajectory of a gauss round.	morality missile realist morals	James S.A. Corey
89b138a	Customs, morals--is there a difference?	society morals	Robert A. Heinlein
7a44d20	The poison that is war does not free us from the ethics of responsibility. There are times when we must take this poison - just as a person with cancer accepts chemotherapy to live. We can not succumb to despair. Force is and I suspect always will be part of the human condition. There are times when the force wielded by one immoral faction must be countered by a faction that, while never moral, is perhaps less immoral. We in the industrialized world bear responsibility for the world's genocides because we had the power to intervene and did not. We stood by and watched the slaughter in Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Rwanda where a million people died. The blood for the victims of Srebrenica- a designated UN safe area in Bosnia- is on our hands. The generation before mine watched, with much the same passivity, the genocides of Germany, Poland, Hungary, Greece, and the Ukraine. These slaughters were, as in, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book Chronical of a Death Foretold, often announced in advance	violence war morality genocide morals	Chris Hedges
03fbe67	"individuals are concerned not with the moral issue of realizing these standards, but with the amoral issue of engineering a convincing impression that these standards are being realized. Our activity, then, is largely concerned with moral matters, but as performers we do not have a moral concern in these moral matters. As performers we are merchants of morality. Our day is given over to intimate contact with the goods we display and our minds are filled with intimate understandings of them; but it may well be that the more attention we give to these goods, th e more d is ta n t we feel from them and from those who are believing enough to buy them. To use a different imagery, the very obligation and profitablility of appearing always in a steady moral light, of being a socialized character, forces	philosophy sociology morals	Erving Goffman
5c59538	"Had I done it sooner, perhaps he might have lived. He was a man of courage and good heart, a proud man. Now he is dead. I saved the signal to use in a worthy cause, and when I found one it was wasted." "Wasted?" answered Fflewddur. "I think not. Since you did your best and didn't begrudge using it, I shouldn't call it wasted at all."	worth regret morals values	Lloyd Alexander
d2d29aa	Power without moral direction is the most dangerous force in the world.	direction power morals	Christopher Paolini
af11054	"Values aren't buses," she said shortly. "They're not supposed to get you anywhere. They're supposed to define who you are. And I'd rather be touchy-feely than morally bankrupt."	morality sinning sins morals values	Jennifer Crusie
db6d82a	Was there ever a great true love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections?...I could not let myself become that unmindful. Isn't that what love is - losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally - that's the worst, I think, deficient morals.	love morals	Amy Tan
7103481	"If you were me you'd do the right thing, help your friends, because you're not a coward," Mandy sighed sadly. "I covered up a murder because I was scared to go to jail and I did the wrong thing... well, now's my chance to do the right thing, to save someone's life, because I don't want you to die." "Save someone's life? I'm no one," Alecto laughed morbidly. "A hundred and twelve years is definitely way too long to have survived. You'd be wasting your time and risking your own life...." "This is my life," Mandy declared, smiling sincerely. Alecto just looked concerned and very doubtful as the rain drizzled down the roads and sidewalks, towards the harbour where it fell into the ocean, indistinguishable from all the other water in the world." --	suicide grief murder loss wrong death friendship disturbance moral-values seaside imaginary-friend cape-breton nova-scotia coward jail rescue help friend misery crime scary right morals ocean dying	Rebecca McNutt
02cd4ca	To train a citizen is to train a critic. The whole point of education is that it should give a man abstract and eternal standards, by which he can judge material and fugitive conditions.	education morals standards values	G.K. Chesterton
7a76f0a	Politics really must be a rotten profession considering what awful moral cowards most politicians become as soon as they get the job.	politicians morals	Martha Gellhorn
62d1458	But I will never ask anyone from our village-from any village in Tlanth-to risk his or her life unless I'm willing to myself.	war life morals	Sherwood Smith
bdedd92	If our ethical code makes a purely arbitrary distinction between humans and all other species, then we have a code based on naked selfishness devoid of any higher principle.	evolution humanity science animal-welfare biology research morals	Jared Diamond
e2a9ebe	Belief's always right.. It's all right and it's also unmistakable. Every man has somewhere about him some belief for which he'd die. Only isn't it improbable that your parents and guardians told it to you? If there is one won't it be part of your own flesh and spirit?	morals values	E.M. Forster
442c10f	I'm just saying that once that have an excuse, people will do anything. They do what they are told, and they take their money and they think it's all okay because it's just their job, while their real self is what happens after work, when they're bouncing a baby on the knee, or writing poems about snowflakes or whatever.	work professional-life morals	Paul Murray
f6b7f17	He disapproved, he didn't believe in girls drinking, he was full of the conventions of a generation older than himself. Of course one drank oneself, one fornicated, but one didn't lie with a friend's sister, and 'decent' girls were never squiffy.	sex men women gender-relationships men-and-women gender morals	Graham Greene

Top 15 Things Money Can't Bu

money time integrity character trust inspiration inspirational-quotes life-quotes happiness life love inspirational common-sense class manners inner-peace dignity health respect morals patience

Roy T. Bennett

f8ed335

So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

wrong right-and-wrong right morals

Ernest Hemingway

c7256ab

Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base though.

morality morals

Richard Dawkins

7ffe76d

Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals.

friends company deceit morals

Anonymous

b9c6c18

"The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. (from "Rediscovering Lost Values")" --

universe morals physics values

Martin Luther King Jr.

4b8e679

The answer is that there is no good answer. So as parents, as doctors, as judges, and as a society, we fumble through and make decisions that allow us to sleep at night--because morals are more important than ethics, and love is more important than law.

love law ethics decisions morals

Jodi Picoult

9ee3607

"War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against" whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the "right" side and therefore will win. Right makes might."

war morality right-and-wrong morals

Ursula K. Le Guin

ad1d043

He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals

religion science nationalism morals

Henry Miller

9210866

Second, the reason to embrace and celebrate these novels as the countercultural event that they are is due largely to the subliminal messages delivered by Harry and friends in their stolen wheelbarrows. Readers walk away, maybe a little softer on the occult than they were, but with story-embedded messages: the importance of a pure soul; love's power even over death; about sacrifice and loyalty; a host of images and shadows about Christ and how essential 'right belief' is for personal transformation and victory over internal and external evils.

harry-potter lessons morals

John Granger

3761e05

"War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against" whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off."

good-and-evil war life ethics morals

Ursula K. Le Guin

d97909d

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt.

injustice morality innocent law innocence justice guilt morals values

Ayn Rand

33f2ad6

By definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange - meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities. This is what the television news is all about. Unfortunately there is so much original sin in us all that we find evil rather attractive. To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create.

good morality moral-compass morals evil sin

Anthony Burgess

4ffdb37

"Someone once said that nothing costs more and yields less benefit than revenge," Aomame said. "Winston Churchill. As I recall it, though, he was making excuses for the British Empire's budget deficits. It has no moral significance."

revenge murakami morals

Haruki Murakami

1308606

The widespread assumption that ethical behavior takes the fun out of life is false. In actuality, living ethically ensures that relationships in our lives, including encounters with strangers, nurture our spiritual growth.

fun love growth morals

Bell Hooks

aba1792

Is it possible that future generations will regard our present agribuisness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero's entertainments or Mengele's experiments? My own initial reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme - and yet the reason it seems extreme to me appears to be that I believe animals are less morally important than human behings; and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I haven't succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient.

animal-rights ethics morals

David Foster Wallace

a6a9d57

Every living creature on the earth is special. You want to be the one that puts an end to one of them?

morals

Sue Monk Kidd

5854480

I was only twelve. But I knew how much I loved her. It was that love that comes before all significance of body and morals. It was that love that was no more bad than wind and sea and sand lying side by side forever. It was made of all the warm long days together at the beach, and the humming quiet days of droning education at the school. All the long Autumn days of the years past when I carried her books home from school.

education love beach october forever fall child morals school

Ray Bradbury

61f9111

Greaser ' didn't have anything to do with it. My buddy over there wouldn't have done it. Maybe you would have done the same thing, maybe a friend of yours wouldn't have. It's the individual.

individuality morality morals

S.E. Hinton

bf61ade

If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables?

parables morals stories

Thomas Hardy

71ee545

If an action must be taken that will benefit the majority at the cost of the minority, is it morally indefensible? If an action taken for the benefit of a majority occurs at the expense of a minority, is it moral action?

benefit shades-children garth-nix majority minority shade morals

Garth Nix

0598558

As readers, we are seldom interested in the fine sentiments of a lesson learnt; we seldom care about the good manners of morals. Repentance puts an end to conversation; forgiveness becomes the stuff of moralistic tracts. Revenge - bloodthirsty, justice-hungry revenge - is the very essence of romance, lying at the heart of much of the best fiction.

revenge romance repentance forgiveness readers morals

Alberto Manguel

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We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We no longer have to be brought into line by the threat of hell or the promise of paradise; we merely have to be reminded that it is we ourselves -- that is, the most mature and reasonable parts of us (seldom present in the midst of our crises and obsessions) -- who want to lead the sort of life which we once imagined supernatural beings demanded of us. An adequate evolution of morality from superstition to reason should mean recognizing ourselves as the authors of our own moral commandments.

morality reason god life commandments superstition morals

Alain de Botton

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Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think - not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment - on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is.

virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

virtue man mind good morality choice reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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The Golden Rule is intolerable; if millions did to others whatever they wished others to do to them, few would be safe from molestation. The Golden Rule shows anything but moral genius, and the claim by which it is followed in the Sermon on the Mount -- 'this is the Law and the Prophets' -- makes little sense.

jesus morality golden-rule morals

Walter Kaufmann

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These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness

virtue history good morality goodness faith religion religious belief-systems dune-arrakis dune-house-atreides evil-men falsehoods justice-of-god dune-messiah dune moral-law religion-philosophy falsehood historical-perspective history-of-thought history-of-mankind belief-system religion-spirituality religious-faith historical beliefs religions moral virtues morals evil

Frank Herbert

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Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

virtue pain man mind good independence morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness--to value the failure of your values--is an insolent negation of morality.

virtue man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.

sacrifice life philosophy john-galt morals values

Ayn Rand

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Morality--like velocity--is relative. The determination of it depends on what the objects around you are doing. All one can do is measure one's position in relation to them; never can one measure one's velocity or morality in terms of absolutes.

relativity ethics morals

David Gerrold

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Is lawlessness to be permitted, simply because it is effected with a certain style? Jane, Jane! Where are your finer sensibilities? All o'erthrown, by a man with a golden tongue and a mocking glance?

morals

Stephanie Barron

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This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity--that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself--and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!

vegetarianism morals

Leo Tolstoy

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[At the scene of a murder] The cats' bloodthirst was normal; it was the way God had made them. They were hunters, they killed for food and to train their young--well maybe sometimes for sport. But this violent act by some unknown human had nothing to do with hunting--for a human to brutally maim one of the own kind out of rage or sadism or greed was, to Joe and Dulcie (the cats), a shocking degradation of the human condition. To imagine that vicious abandon in a human deeply distressed Dulcie; she did not like thinking about humans that way.

murder human-condition ethics morals

Shirley Rousseau Murphy

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Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders' attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.

virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.

virtue man mind existence morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think consciousness thinking morals values

Ayn Rand

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Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking--that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action--that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise--that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality--that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind--that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one's consciousness.

virtue pain man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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"Ozorne, please don't let him try to make me into a battle mage. I wish you'd told me that's what you wanted." Arram stopped and grabbed his friend by the arms. "I won't do it. I'm not a killer. I'll never be a killer."

killing murder battle-mage ozorne numair killer morals

Tamora Pierce

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I never swear, Monseigneur. I say Yes or No, and as I am a gentleman, I keep my word.

gentleman word honor morals

Alexandre Dumas

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Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies...It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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How would that premise stand up if he examined it? That was probably why the Communists were always cracking down on Bohemiansism. When you were drunk or when you committed adultery you recognised your own personal fallability of that so mutable substitute for the apostles' creed, the party line. Down with Bohemianism, the sin of Majakowski.

religion drink morals communism

Ernest Hemingway

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...I realized that my father, of all these men, was the most obstinate, helplessly bonded to his better instincts and their excessive demands. I only then understood that he had quit his job not merely because he was fearful of what awaited us down the line should we agree like the others to be relocated, but because, for better or worse, when he was bullied by superior forces that he deemed corrupt it was his nature not to yield--in this instance, to resist either running away to Canada, as my mother urged our doing, or bowing to a government directive that was patently unjust. There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty And Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.

morals fair-play instincts mores obstinacy standards fairness

Philip Roth

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You can take your gold, but afterwards, things are, things are . There is less beauty in a rainbow, less meaning in a sermon, less joy in a kiss...Less.

morals folklore

Neil Gaiman

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If there is a moral to this part of the story, and I distrust morals in the same way that I distrust beginnings, it is simply this: know that with which you deal.

morals

Neil Gaiman

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Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to be the Light of the world. Buddhism was born with a disgust for the world, when a prince's son deserted his wife and child, turning from the pleasures of existence to the problems of existence. Burnt by the fires of the world, and already weary with it, Buddha turned to ethics.

buddhism ethics morals

Fulton J. Sheen

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"Referring to Jumper the spider, who needs to hide himself in human form, and he's learning to act like a human. "I'm sure I can learn to walk faster than that," he said desperately. "But you'll also need to learn the nuances of human behavior. Such as not going around naked." "What's wrong with being natural?" he demanded. "Humans aren't natural. They are girt about by all manner of conventions. It will take time for you to catch up with them all."

spiders morals

Piers Anthony

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The moral high ground is a lovely place. It won't stop a missile, though. It won't alter the trajectory of a gauss round.

morality missile realist morals

James S.A. Corey

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Customs, morals--is there a difference?

society morals

Robert A. Heinlein

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The poison that is war does not free us from the ethics of responsibility. There are times when we must take this poison - just as a person with cancer accepts chemotherapy to live. We can not succumb to despair. Force is and I suspect always will be part of the human condition. There are times when the force wielded by one immoral faction must be countered by a faction that, while never moral, is perhaps less immoral. We in the industrialized world bear responsibility for the world's genocides because we had the power to intervene and did not. We stood by and watched the slaughter in Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Rwanda where a million people died. The blood for the victims of Srebrenica- a designated UN safe area in Bosnia- is on our hands. The generation before mine watched, with much the same passivity, the genocides of Germany, Poland, Hungary, Greece, and the Ukraine. These slaughters were, as in, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book Chronical of a Death Foretold, often announced in advance

violence war morality genocide morals

Chris Hedges

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"individuals are concerned not with the moral issue of realizing these standards, but with the amoral issue of engineering a convincing impression that these standards are being realized. Our activity, then, is largely concerned with moral matters, but as performers we do not have a moral concern in these moral matters. As performers we are merchants of morality. Our day is given over to intimate contact with the goods we display and our minds are filled with intimate understandings of them; but it may well be that the more attention we give to these goods, th e more d is ta n t we feel from them and from those who are believing enough to buy them. To use a different imagery, the very obligation and profitablility of appearing always in a steady moral light, of being a socialized character, forces

philosophy sociology morals

Erving Goffman

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"Had I done it sooner, perhaps he might have lived. He was a man of courage and good heart, a proud man. Now he is dead. I saved the signal to use in a worthy cause, and when I found one it was wasted." "Wasted?" answered Fflewddur. "I think not. Since you did your best and didn't begrudge using it, I shouldn't call it wasted at all."

worth regret morals values

Lloyd Alexander

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Power without moral direction is the most dangerous force in the world.

direction power morals

Christopher Paolini

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"Values aren't buses," she said shortly. "They're not supposed to get you anywhere. They're supposed to define who you are. And I'd rather be touchy-feely than morally bankrupt."

morality sinning sins morals values

Jennifer Crusie

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Was there ever a great true love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections?...I could not let myself become that unmindful. Isn't that what love is - losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally - that's the worst, I think, deficient morals.

love morals

Amy Tan

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"If you were me you'd do the right thing, help your friends, because you're not a coward," Mandy sighed sadly. "I covered up a murder because I was scared to go to jail and I did the wrong thing... well, now's my chance to do the right thing, to save someone's life, because I don't want you to die." "Save someone's life? I'm no one," Alecto laughed morbidly. "A hundred and twelve years is definitely way too long to have survived. You'd be wasting your time and risking your own life...." "This is my life," Mandy declared, smiling sincerely. Alecto just looked concerned and very doubtful as the rain drizzled down the roads and sidewalks, towards the harbour where it fell into the ocean, indistinguishable from all the other water in the world." --

suicide grief murder loss wrong death friendship disturbance moral-values seaside imaginary-friend cape-breton nova-scotia coward jail rescue help friend misery crime scary right morals ocean dying

Rebecca McNutt

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To train a citizen is to train a critic. The whole point of education is that it should give a man abstract and eternal standards, by which he can judge material and fugitive conditions.

education morals standards values

G.K. Chesterton

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Politics really must be a rotten profession considering what awful moral cowards most politicians become as soon as they get the job.

politicians morals

Martha Gellhorn

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But I will never ask anyone from our village-from any village in Tlanth-to risk his or her life unless I'm willing to myself.

war life morals

Sherwood Smith

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If our ethical code makes a purely arbitrary distinction between humans and all other species, then we have a code based on naked selfishness devoid of any higher principle.

evolution humanity science animal-welfare biology research morals

Jared Diamond

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Belief's always right.. It's all right and it's also unmistakable. Every man has somewhere about him some belief for which he'd die. Only isn't it improbable that your parents and guardians told it to you? If there is one won't it be part of your own flesh and spirit?

morals values

E.M. Forster

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I'm just saying that once that have an excuse, people will do anything. They do what they are told, and they take their money and they think it's all okay because it's just their job, while their real self is what happens after work, when they're bouncing a baby on the knee, or writing poems about snowflakes or whatever.

work professional-life morals

Paul Murray

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He disapproved, he didn't believe in girls drinking, he was full of the conventions of a generation older than himself. Of course one drank oneself, one fornicated, but one didn't lie with a friend's sister, and 'decent' girls were never squiffy.

sex men women gender-relationships men-and-women gender morals

Graham Greene