Morals Quotes

Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires...Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform.

~ Ayn Rand

Man’s life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being—not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement—not survival at any price, since there’s only one price that pays for man’s survival: reason.

~ Ayn Rand

All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good, all that which destroys it is the evil.

~ Ayn Rand

There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man’s Life is its standard of value.All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

~ Ayn Rand

Man’s life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose . If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man—for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.

~ Ayn Rand

Man has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

~ Ayn Rand

Reason is your means of survival — so that for you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question 'to think or not to think..'.

~ Ayn Rand

Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action...To remain alive, he must think.

~ Ayn Rand

Scientific advancement carries risk,” Kohler argued. “It always has. Space programs, genetic research, medicine—they all make mistakes. Science needs to survive its own blunders, at any cost. For everyone’s sake.”Vittoria was amazed at Kohler’s ability to weigh moral issues with scientific detachment. His intellect seemed to be the product of an icy divorce from his inner spirit. “You think CERN is so critical to the earth’s future that we should be immune from moral responsibility?

~ Dan Brown

We are much too tolerant of the moral aberration of statesmen and bureaucrats.

~ Kenzaburō Ōe

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

~ Christopher Paolini

Keth, power brings with it the need to make moral judgments; history proves that. You have no choice but to make those decisions.

~ Mercedes Lackey

Power and influence: things that should be obtained not for means of greed, nor pride, nor ego, but rather to ensure that in the right moment, when your wisdom and benevolence are required to keep humanity strong and united, you can deliver and orchestrate others toward the greater good.

~ A.j. Darkholme

The end must justify the means.

~ Matthew Prior

Family and friends become oppressors the moment they teach you that loyalty is more important than what is done to people outside your social circle. What they are really saying is this: Save yourself because God is more interested in an intact family or social circle that looks righteous, rather than you being a person of integrity that has compassion for others. It is this absurdity that teaches the wrong version of God and creates the next generation of me centered individuals.

~ Shannon L. Alder

I want to stand on the foundation of ethics and morals when the world around me would assault that foundation with all of its collective might, and in the standing I want to stand on the truth that that foundation will stand long after everything that has assailed it has itself has ceased to stand.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

It is important to refuse to be intimidated. That refusal must not be based simply on a calculation of the odds of succeeding. At times, in my case, multiple lawsuits and an ethics charge seemed overwhelming, and the fact that I knew my work to be accurate and responsible was only partial solace. l was well aware that court, like the National Football League, is an arena in which, on any given Sunday, anybody can win.The refusal to be intimidated must come, in the end, not from a sureness of succeeding but from a knowledge of the cost of scurrying for shelter through fake retractions and disowned truths. It is a question, in the end of self-respect.Who among us could, in good faith, ever face a survivor of childhood abuse again were we to run for cover when pressed ourselves? Children are not permitted that choice, and the adults who choose to work with them and with the survivors they become cannot afford to make it. It would be a choice to become. Through betrayal and deceit, that to which we object.Our alternative, then, is not to hide. Not to refuse to treat adult survivors, not to refuse to go to court in their defense, not to apologize and retract statements we know are true, but to cultivate endurance and tenacity as carefully as we read the research.Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998

~ Anna C. Salter

God has a way of picking a “nobody” and turning their world upside down, in order to create a “somebody” that will remove the obstacles they encountered out of the pathway for others.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Good philosophy is always hate speech to evil doers.

~ Stefan Molyneux

Strangers when you meet, strangers when you part -a gymnasium of bodies namelessly masturbating each other. People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or to love. So they became swingers. The dead fucking the dead. There was no gamble or humor in their game -it was corpse fucking corpse. Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience down through the centuries. Some morals tended to keep people slaves in factories, in churches and true to the State. Other morals simply made good sense. It was like a garden filled with poisoned fruit and good fruit. You had to know which to pick and eat, which to leave alone.

~ Charles Bukowski

Young people are moving away from feeling guilty about sleeping with somebody to feeling guilty if they are *not* sleeping with someone.

~ Margaret Mead

Since its appearance the view that prostitution is a product of capitalism has gained ground enormously. And as, in addition, preachers still complain that the good old morals have decayed, and accuse modern culture of having led to loose living, everyone is convinced that all sexual wrongs represent a symptom of decadence peculiar to our age.

~ Ludwig Von Mises

Morals are nothing but a civilized society’s attempt to tame some beast called man.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

People become desensitized to many things going on around them. It is because they always see it on the tv, hear it on the radio, read or watch it on the internet, hear about it at work etc. Then immoral acts are tuned to a deaf ear. Then no one wants to take action or speak up for what's right. Break the cycle and have moral character.

~ Amaka Imani Nkosazana

In a kingdom of thieves, the ways of an honest man will always be a crime.

~ Dennis Adonis

Sell your materials but save your morals.

~ Amit Kalantri

I believe that children in this country need a more robust literary diet than they are getting. …It does not hurt them to read about good and evil, love and hate, life and death. Nor do I think they should read only about things that they understand. '…a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.' So should a child’s. For myself, I will never talk down to, or draw down to, children.(from the author's acceptance speech for the Caldecott award)

~ Barbara Cooney

The innocence of children is what makes them stand out as a shining example to the rest of Mankind.

~ Kurt Chambers

Reasoning does create a paradox: it leads both to more rule following and more rebelliousness. By explaining moral principles, parents encourage their children to comply voluntarily with rules that align with important values and to question rules that don’t. Good explanations enable children to develop a code of ethics that often coincides with societal expectations; when they don’t square up, children rely on the internal compass of values rather than the external compass of rules.

~ Adam Grant

Gather close, and let us speak of nasty little shits. Oh, come now, we are no strangers to the vicious demons in placid disguises, innocent eyes so wide, hidden minds so dark. Does evil exist? Is it a force, some deadly possession that slips into the unwary? Is it a thing separate and thus subject to accusation and blame, distinct from the one it has used? Does it flit from soul to soul, weaving its diabolical scheme in all the unseen places, snarling into knots tremulous fears and appalling opportunity, stark terrors and brutal self-interest? Or is the dread word nothing more than a quaint and oh so convenient encapsulation of all those traits distinctly lacking moral context, a sweeping generalization embracing all things depraved and breath takingly cruel, a word to define that peculiar glint in the eye—the voyeur to one’s own delivery of horror, of pain and anguish and impossible grief?Give the demon crimson scales, slashing talons. Tentacles and dripping poison. Three eyes and six slithering tongues. As it crouches there in the soul, its latest abode in an eternal succession of abodes, may every god kneel in prayer.But really. Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity—the sad truth is our possession of an innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us.But if that is too dire, let’s call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.There are extremities of behaviour that seem, at the time, perfectly natural, indeed reasonable. They are arrived at suddenly, or so it might seem, but if one looks the progression reveals itself, step by step, and that is a most sad truth.

~ Steven Erikson

It became my mission to work with young people to help show them the way, not save them! But help them understand that there are choices that can be made that will make the difference for the rest of their lives.

~ Jose A. Aviles

I might be asked, ‘Do you equally reject the approach which begins with the question “What do modern children need?” — in other words, with the moral or didactic approach?’ I think the answer is Yes. Not because I don’t like stories to have a moral: certainly not because I think children dislike a moral. Rather because I feel sure that the question ‘What do modern children need?’ will not lead you to a good moral. If we ask that question we are assuming too superior an attitude. It would be better to ask ‘What moral do I need?’ for I think we can be sure that what does not concern us deeply will not deeply interest our readers, whatever their age. But it is better not to ask the question at all. Let the pictures tell you their own moral. For the moral inherent in them will rise from whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life. But if they don’t show you any moral, don’t put one in.

~ C.s. Lewis

Fairytales teach children that the world is fraught with danger, including life-threatening danger; but by being clever (always), honest (as a rule, but with common-sense exceptions), courteous (especially to the elderly, no matter their apparent social station), and kind (to anyone in obvious need), even a child can succeed where those who seem more qualified have failed.And this precisely what children most need to hear.To let them go on believing that the world is safe, that they will be provided for and achieve worthwhile things even if they remain stupid, shirk integrity, despise courtesy, and act only from self-interest, that they ought to rely on those stronger, smarter, and more able to solve their problems, would be the gravest disservice: to them, and to society as a whole.-On the Supposed Unsuitability of Fairytales for Children

~ J. Aleksandr Wootton

Stealing is wrong Billy

~ David Chuka

If you go door to door in our nation and talk to citizens about domestic violence, almost everyone will insist that they do not support male violence against women, that they believe it to be morally and ethically wrong. However, if you then explain that we cannot end male violence against women by challenging patriarchy, and that means no longer accepting the notion that men should have more rights and privileges than women because of biological difference or that men should have the power to rule over women, that is when the agreement stops. There is a gap between the values they claim to hold and their willingness to do the work of connecting thought and action, theory and practice to realize these values and thus create a more just society.

~ Bell Hooks

And a human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only, having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer, and the scavengers of the deep sea.

~ James Agee

To live in a state of liberty is not to live apart from law. It is, on the contrary, to live under the highest law, the only law that can really profit a man, the law which is consciously and deliberately imposed by himself on himself.

~ Auberon Herbert

Then none was for a party;Then all were for the state;Then the great man helped the poor,And the poor man loved the great;Then lands were fairly proportioned;Then spoils were fairly sold;The Romans were like brothersIn the brave days of old.

~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

The new dumb, is now wisdom.

~ Anthony Liccione

Without morality and virtue most things in a free society fall apart. But with them, anything is possible.

~ Glenn Beck