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Quotations about morality

Marcus Tullius CiceroWhat is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

 - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Tags:   morality  right  wrong  

Mahatma GandhiTo call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?

 - Mahatma Gandhi

Tags:   heart  intuition  morality  women  

Henry Brooks AdamsWomen have, commonly, a very positive moral sense; that which they will, is right; that which they reject, is wrong; and their will, in most cases, ends by settling the moral.

 - Henry Brooks Adams

Tags:   morality  women  

Robert HeinleinI am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

 - Robert A. Heinlein

Tags:   freedom  law  morality  rules  

Martin Luther KingNever, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

 - Martin Luther King

Tags:   animals  ethics  morality  punishment  

Edmund BurkeManners are of more importance than laws. Upon them in a great measure, the Laws depend. The Law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.

 - Edmund Burke

Tags:   laws  manners  morality  morals  

Theodore RooseveltThe eighth commandment reads, "Thou shalt not steal." It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the rich man." It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the poor man." It reads simply and plainly, "Thou shalt not steal."

No good whatever will come from that warped and mock morality which denounces the misdeeds of men of wealth and forgets the misdeeds practiced at their expense; which denounces bribery, but blinds itself to blackmail; which foams with rage if a corporation secures favors by improper methods, and merely leers with hideous mirth if the corporation is itself wronged.

 - Theodore Roosevelt

Tags:   bribery  corporations  morality  stealing  wealth  

Immanuel KantThere is an imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it. This imperative is Categorical...This imperative may be called that of Morality.

 - Immanuel Kant

Tags:   conduct  ethics  morality  

Immanuel KantWhoever wills the end, wills also (so far as reason decides his conduct) the means in his power which are indispensably necessary thereto.

Wer den Zweck will, will (so fern die Vernunft auf seine Handlungen entscheidenden Einfluss hat), auch das dazu unentbehrlich nothwendige Mittel, das in seiner Gewalt ist.

 - Immanuel Kant

Tags:   conduct  morality  responsibility  

Mahatma GandhiThe things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.

 - Mahatma Gandhi

Tags:   conscience  morality  work