Moral Quotes
In any matter of moral importance, our first task, before we plunge ahead and decide what to do, is to figure out what we ought to do.
We commit not only theoretical error but also moral wrong in objectifying ourselves or other rational beings, ignoring their capacities for free action and communicative interaction with us.
Kant thinks that a free will is a will under moral laws and that freedom and the moral law are distinct thoughts that reciprocally imply each other. Fichte thinks they are the same thought.
Kant did think he had a moral route back to rational faith in God, for those who need it, and he thought that at some level, we all do need something like it.
If being "iron headed" is to be lacking such feelings, then Kant's position is that an ironheaded person could not be a moral agent because such a person would not be rational.
What is central to morality is rational self-constraint (acting from duty), in cease where there is no other incentive to do your duty except that the moral law commands it.
Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues.
Not only our moral life, but even our use of theoretical reason - on which we rely in rationally inquiring into nature - presupposes that we are free.
DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
I would define morality as enlightened self-interest...That old Platonic ideal that there are certain pure moral forms just isn't where we are.
I do listen to myself sometimes and think, 'Is my moral compass so easily swayed by the characters I play, or is it me growing as a human being?'
Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings: the rights of all men grow out of their moral nature; and as all men have the same moral nature, they have the same rights.
The scary truth is, you have to scratch some veneer off to gauge where the moral fiber really is in certain pockets of society. It's raw. It's scary. But it gives us a place to work with.
I think subconsciously because of my upbringing, I was very aware of values and morals and that's why I experienced the occasional guilt with my habits.
True beauty is in the mind; and the expression of the features depends more upon the moral nature than most persons are accustomed to think.
Nothing shocks our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty does. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason for this is that it is the very opposite of compassion.
The root of a nation's misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government.
I do not hold to non-violence for moral reasons, but for political and practical reasons.
The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
Errors of knowledge are not breaches of morality; no proper moral code can demand infallibility or omniscience.
Collectivism, as an intellectual power and a moral ideal, is dead. But freedom and individualism, and their political expression, capitalism, have not yet been discovered.
One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.
The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another.
Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.
...only the pleasure which proceeds from a rational value judgement can be regarded as moral, pleasure, as such, is not a guide to action nor a standard of morality.
A bad author can take the most moral issue and make you want to just never, ever think about that moral issue.
His peaceful resistance shook the foundations of an empire, exposed the emptiness of a repressive ideology, and proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon.
I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.
I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak - nothing passive - nothing naïve - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
moral indignation is a pleasure, often the only pleasure, in many lives. It's also one of the few pleasures people feel obliged to force on other people.
They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers.
Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure.
The combination of physical strength and moral sincerity combined with tenderness of heart is exactly what is wanted in a husband.--Ameila Peabody
I ask myself, have nations ever declined from a loss of moral sense rather than from physical reasons or the pressure of barbarians? I think that they have.
For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.
The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.
