Morals Quotes

What then is the relation of law to morality? Law cannot prescribe morality, it can prescribe only external actions and therefore it should prescribe only those actions whose mere fulfillment, from whatever motive, the state adjudges to be conducive to welfare. What actions are these? Obviously such actions as promote the physical and social conditions requisite for the expression and development of free—or moral—personality.... Law does not and cannot cover all the ground of morality. To turn all moral obligations into legal obligations would be to destroy morality. Happily it is impossible. No code of law can envisage the myriad changing situations that determine moral obligations. Moreover, there must be one legal code for all, but moral codes vary as much as the individual characters of which they are the expression. To legislate against the moral codes of one’s fellows is a very grave act, requiring for its justification the most indubitable and universally admitted of social gains, for it is to steal their moral codes, to suppress their characters.

~ R.m. Maciver

What conclusion is to be drawn from this paradox so worthy of being born in our time, and what will become of virtue when one has to get rich at all cost?The ancient political thinkers forever spoke of morals and of virtue, ours speak only of commerce and money.

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The morals of societies are defined by how they treat a strange woman.

~ M.f. Moonzajer

In insisting that personal habit and political action be one and the same, absolutist moralizing limits the possibilities of both.

~ Heather Paxson

First people lose their hair, then their vices, then their motivation. Then a toupee brings it all flowing back.

~ Bauvard

Often,our immediate reaction to a sudden crisis help us save ourselves. Our response to gradual crises that creep up upon us, on the other hand,may be so adaptive as to ultimately lead to self-destruction.

~ Amish Tripathi

Life is short. Life is uncertain. But we know that we have today. And we have each other. I believe that for each of us, there is a place on the frontlines.

~ Eric Greitens

There’s not really such thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people, there’s just like…humanity. And it gets broken sometimes.

~ Isaac Marion

Till it does come, you know, we women never mean to have anybody. It is a thing of course among us, that every man is refused, till he offers.

~ Jane Austen

And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion. “ The Prince, XVIII, 5

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

True politics cannot take a single step without first paying homage to morals, and while politics itself is a difficult art, its combination with morals is no art at all; for morals cuts the Gordian knot which politics cannot solve as soon as the two are in conflict.

~ Immanuel Kant

One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.

~ René Sterne

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.

~ Amy Tan

We middles see the world in shades of grey rather than in the clear blacks and whites of committed animal activists and their equally vociferous opponents

~ Hal Herzog

The distemper of which, as a community, we are sick, should be considered rather as a moral than a political malady.

~ William Wilberforce

Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.

~ Laurence Sterne

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

~ Jeremy Bentham

The Lord's prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals.

~ Arthur Wellesley

You can't raise the standard of women's morals by raising their pay envelope. It lies deeper than that.

~ Billy Sunday

Politics have no relation to morals.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

There are no morals in politics there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.

~ Vladimir Lenin

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

~ Herbert Hoover