A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others. — Charles Darwin
When a man is guided by the principles of reciprocity and consciousness, he is not far from the moral law. Whatever you don't wish for yourself don't do unto others. — Confucius
Ethics, decency and morality are the real soldiers — Kiran Bedi
Moral principle is the foundation of law. — Ronald Dworkin
Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice. — Leon Blum
Morality and immorality are not defined by man's changing attitudes and social customs. They are determined by the God of the universe, whose timeless standards cannot be ignored with impunity. — James Dobson
Short Moral Conduct Quotes
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments. — Christopher Hitchens
Morality is a private and costly luxury. — Henry Adams
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The most powerful moral influence is example. — Huston Smith
Conventionality is not morality. — Charlotte Bronte
The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the faculty of self-control. — Herbert Spencer
What is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. — Ernest Hemingway
As a general thing, an individual who is neat in his person is neat in his morals. — Josh Billings
Moral Conduct Image Quotes
Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situation that threaten your peace of mind, self respect, values, morals and self worth.
Moral Behavior Quotes
If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. — Robert Noyce
Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail as you surely will adjust your lives, not the standards. — Ted Koppel
In my mind of course natural disaster like tsunami, and these things, also I think indirectly may relate to human behavior. But then major sort of problems actually they're due to a lack of moral principle. — Dalai Lama
A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.
Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
The test, surely, of a creed is not the ability of those who accept it to announce their faith; its test is its ability to change their behavior in the ordinary round of daily life. Judged by that test, I know no religion that has a moral claim upon the allegiance of men. — Harold Laski
Our disregard of civic and moral virtue as an educational priority is having a tangible effect on the attitudes, understanding and behavior of large portions of the youth population in the United States today. — William Damon
Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
There's a gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities. I call that the Weasel Zone and it's where most of life happens. — Scott Adams
There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. — Viktor E. Frankl
Knowing about the neurobiological and evolutionary basis for social behavior can soften the arrogance and self-righteousness that often attends discussions of morality. It may help us all to think a little more carefully and rationally. — Patricia Churchland
I don't believe there is any such definition, there is no such thing as evil, only moral judgments based on what society believes to be wrong behavior. — Nikolas Schreck
Moral Life Quotes
The most important thing in life is to dare. The most complicated thing in life is to be afraid. The smartest thing in the world is to try to be a moral person. — Shimon Peres
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Improve the World Through Music. — Plato
Females in our generation morals are just out the window. Materialistic things aren't life. I'd rather walk in the rain with a man who treats me like a queen than to ride in a Benz with a man who treats me like crap. — Jhene Aiko
Laws control a lesser person, right conduct controls a greater one.
When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat
Do not try to fix whatever comes in your life. Fix yourself in such a way that whatever comes, you will be fine. — Jaggi Vasudev
Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. — C. S. Lewis
Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it. — Emile Durkheim
One must speak for a struggle for a new culture, that is, for a new moral life that cannot but be intimately connected to a new intuition of life, until it becomes a new way of feeling and seeing reality — Antonio Gramsci
We have to build a better man before we can build a better society. — Paul Tillich
Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to. — Emile Durkheim
Moral Ethics Quotes
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. — Immanuel Kant
Do the right thing because it is right. — Immanuel Kant
How sweet to be a Cloud. Floating in the Blue! — A. A. Milne
Bad company ruins good morals.
Solidarity is based on the principle that we are willing to put ourselves at risk to protect each other. — Starhawk
The meaning of life is pretty clear: Living things strive to pass their genes into the future. The claim that we would not have morals or ethics without religion is extraordinary. Animals in nature seem to behave in moral ways without organized religion. — Bill Nye
My selective memory of what drinking was like told me that standing at the bar in a pub, on a summer's evening with a long, tall glass of lager and lime was heaven, and I chose not to remember the nights on which I had sat with a bottle of vodka, a gram of coke and a shotgun, contemplating suicide. — Eric Clapton
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
Stand for something. Don't quest for popularity at the expense of morality and ethics and honesty. — Howard Cosell
People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad. — Stephen King
The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. — Arthur Schopenhauer
You can’t have a moral society without sound money. — Robert Breedlove
Ethical Conduct Quotes
No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business. — John F. Kennedy
I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives. A disastrous by-product of the development of the scientific and technical mentality. We are guilty. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits. — Albert Einstein
Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage. — William Lloyd Garrison
I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers. — Dee Hock
The Gospel is not a mere message of deliverance, but a canon of conduct; it is not a theology to be accepted, but it is ethics to be lived. It is not to be believed only, but it is to be taken into life as a guide. — Alexander Maclaren
We have been quick to assume rights to use water but slow to recognize obligations to preserve and protect it... In short, we need a water ethic-a guide to right conduct in the face of complex decisions about natural systems we do not and cannot fully understand. — Sandra Postel
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative. — Jean Cocteau
By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe. — Albert Schweitzer
Ethical conduct is something that becomes inherent in an organization over a long period of time. — Lee R. Raymond
A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct — Aldo Leopold
Moral Code Quotes
Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it. They have decided that it is entirely right and proper for men to fight for their liberties and their rights, but that it is not right and proper for women to fight for theirs. — Emmeline Pankhurst
There are two ways to aquire the niceties of life:
1) To produce them or
2) To plunder them.
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Paul Valery
We [Israel people] always blame Moses, that he was our greatest leader and one of the most gifted people in the world. He brought us the moral code and so on, belief in one God, but then he was a bad navigator. He brought us to the only part of the Middle East without any gas, without any oil. — Benjamin Netanyahu
I'd say a man is someone who is strong-minded, moral, genuine, just a good human beeing.
And I don't think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe there's another set of moral codes, but I don't think government has a role. — Clarence Thomas
The responsibility of the executive is (1) to create and maintain a sense of purpose and moral code for the organization; (2) to establish systems of formal and informal communication; and (3) to ensure the willingness of people to cooperate. — Chester Barnard
Perhaps the time has come to formulate a moral code which would govern our relations with the great creatures of the sea as well as with those on dry land. That this will come to pass is my dear wish. — Jacques Yves Cousteau
There is nothing inherently sacred about moral codes. Like the wooden idols of long ago, they are the work of human hands, and what man has made, man can destroy! — Anton Szandor LaVey
More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life. — Barbara Tuchman
While women were tortured, drowned and burned by the thousands, scarce one wizard to a hundred was ever condemned ... The same distinction of sex appears in our own day. One code of morals for men, another for women. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it. — Emmeline Pankhurst
Moral Aspect Quotes
The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed immense attraction for me. — Elizabeth Blackwell
I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier. — Curtis LeMay
The modern dilemma is essentially a spiritual one, and every one of its main aspects, moral, political and scientific, brings us back to the need of a religious solution. — Christopher Dawson
We would, however, perform an injustice to the bourgeois women's rights movement if we would regard it as solely motivated by economics. No, this movement also contains a more profound spiritual and moral aspect. — Clara Zetkin
Fantasy allows you bend the world and the situation to more clearly focus on the moral aspects of what's happening. In fantasy you can distill life down to the essence of your story. — Terry Goodkind
I have my ethics and morals. I have my anchor point of what is right and wrong in real life, but I'm not afraid to entertain any and every aspect of personality in relationship to creating a character. — Corin Nemec
Sex education, including its spiritual aspects, should be part of a broad health and moral education from kindergarten through grade twelve, ideally carried out harmoniously by parents and teachers. — Benjamin Spock
The moral and spiritual aspects of both personal and international relationships have a practical bearing which so-called practical men deny. — Henry A. Wallace
We observe with confidence that the truly strong mind, view it as intellect or morality, or under any other aspect, is nowise the mind acquainted with its strength; that here the sign of health is unconsciousness. — Thomas Carlyle
The most distressing aspect of the world into which you are going is its indifference to the basic issues, which now, as always, are moral issues. — Robert M. Hutchins
Moral Integrity Quotes
To me dogs are not the students, not the ones that need training. To me a dog is a teacher of life, who teaches us the principles of the most important moral values; honesty, integrity, loyalty, trust, respect and love. — Cesar Millan
We need more men with the guts, with the courage, with the strength, with the moral integrity to break our complicit silence and challenge each other and stand with women and not against them. — Jackson Katz
Goodness is about character - integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people. — Dennis Prager
Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur. — Raymond Chandler
Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good. — Marcus Aurelius
It is not what they profess but what they practice that makes them good — Greek Proverbs
Voting is the most precious right of every citizen, and we have a moral obligation to ensure the integrity of our voting process. — Hillary Clinton
Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community. — John W. Gardner
The reward for doing right is mostly an internal phenomenon: self-respect, dignity, integrity, and self-esteem. — Laura Schlessinger
Don’t do things that you know are morally wrong. Not because someone is watching, but because you are. Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. — Naval Ravikant
Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears. — Albert Bandura
When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder. — Lao Tzu
When you are around people who have money, you realise money isn't that impressive, it's about your class, morals and how you conduct yourself. — Anthony Joshua
Fundamentally, the force that rules the world is conduct, whether it be moral or immoral. If it is moral, at least there may be hope for the world. If immoral, there is not only no hope, but no prospect of anything but destruction of all that has been accomplished during the last 5,000 years. — Nicholas Murray Butler
Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? — George Washington
A responsibility to be a role model as a father yes, as a man, as a public figure, yes. That responsibility just leads me to do what I feel is right and to conduct myself with the moral standards, principles, and integrity that were instilled in me by my family. — T.I.
Real morality is possible when the sanctions for morality are also tangible and real. Therefore, atheism shifts the basis of morality from faith in god to obligations of social living. Moral conduct is not a passport to heaven; it is social necessity. — Goparaju Ramachandra Rao
The first and most important thing is to remain free, free in each line you undertake, in your ideas and in your political action, in your moral conduct. The artist especially must remain free from all outer restraints. — Hans Hartung
The great rule of moral conduct is next to God, respect time. — Johann Kaspar Lavater
Ought we not to ask the media to agree among themselves a voluntary code of conduct, under which they would not say or show anything which could assist the terrorists' morale or their cause while the hijack lasted. — Margaret Thatcher
Where there is no free agency, there can be no morality. Where there is no temptation, there can be little claim to virtue. Where the routine is rigorously proscribed by law, the law, and not the man, must have the credit of the conduct. — William H. Prescott
Those who conduct themselves with morality, integrity and consistency need not fear the forces of inhumanity and cruelty. — Nelson Mandela
Moral conduct includes every thing in which men are active and for which they are accountable. They are active in their desires, their affections, their designs, their intentions, and in every thing they say and do of choice; and for all these things they are accountable to God. — Nathanael Emmons
The content of scientific theory itself offers no moral foundation for the personal conduct of life. — Albert Einstein
I say statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, most legislation is moral legislations because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres in life. — George Will
While some of them acknowledge the obligation of natural morality in their mode of conducting their cases, and preserve their individual character as gentlemen, there are others who acknowledge no law, human or divine, but the law of Scotland. — George Combe
So [Vladimir] Putin is a mess. He's committed all sort of murderous thuggery, and I am opposed to the way Putin conducts himself in world affairs, and I hope that the president also wants to show moral leadership about this issue. — Benjamin E. Sasse
I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances. — Confucius
Morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct. — Penelope Fitzgerald
One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct. — Laurence Sterne
I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct. — Carl Sandburg
... the self respect of individuals ought to make them demand of their leaders conformity with an agreed-upon code of ethics and moral conduct. — Mary Barnett Gilson
The proper office of religion is to regulate the heart of men, humanize their conduct, infuse the spirit of temperance, order, andobedience; and as its operation is silent, and only enforces the motives of morality and justice, it is in danger of being overlooked, and confounded with these other motives. — David Hume
The idea that war should be conducted within a moral framework may seem like a quaint medieval practice, but as speech separates humans from the apes, so morality separates civilisation from the barbarians. — Eric Corley
Gender, race, ethnicity - these are all morally neutral. But homosexuality is - involves voluntary sexual conduct with serious public health, social, sociological implications. It's not irrational to discriminate on that basis. — Scott Lively
If I fall over and make mistakes, I'll pick myself back up and hope for the best and try to conduct myself with as much authenticity and moral code. — Nicole Kidman
If surrealism ever comes to adopt a particular line of moral conduct, it has only to accept the discipline that Picasso has accepted and will continue to accept. — Andre Breton
Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our moral complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and their tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers. — Judge Learned Hand
To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous. — George Washington
What we must look for here is, firstly, religious and moral principles; secondly, gentlemanly conduct; thirdly, intellectual ability. — Thomas Arnold
Morality is character and conduct such as is required by the circle or community in which the man's life happens to be placed. It shows how much good men require of us. — Henry Ward Beecher
I cannot believe that this country cannot come together around some values what these kids need is a moral life... the issue is not ideas, it is conduct. The real question is how we reach these young people morally, and what do we bring to them. — Robert Coles
Science is the search for the truth--it is not a game in which one tries to beat his opponent, to do harm to others. We need to have the spirit of science in international affairs, to make the conduct of international affairs the effort to find the right solution, the just solution of international problems, and not an effort by each nation to get the better of other nations, to do harm to them when it is possible. I believe in morality, in justice, in humanitarianism. — Linus Pauling
In separating out, say, legal and moral requirements, I tend to work with paradigms rather than strict divisions - eg, paradigmatically, legal requirements are jurisdictionally bound whereas ethical requirements are aspirationally universal; ethical requirements focus especially on intentions whereas legal requirements focus primarily on conduct; ethical requirements take priority over legal requirements; and so on. — John Kleinig
I was nurtured in the church; I went to a Catholic school; I was an altar boy; I went to a Catholic university; I was steeped in the moral tradition of the Catholic Church. My Catholicism plays a very strong role. But I thought President John F.Kennedy answered rather well when he said that ultimately my conduct as a public official does not come ex cathedra from Rome; it comes from my conscience. — Bruce Babbitt
We have advanced far enough to say that democracy is a way of life. We have yet to realize that it is a way of personal life and one which provides a moral standard for personal conduct. — John Dewey
One reason for the decline in moral values is that the world has invented a new, constantly changing and undependable standard of moral conduct referred to as "situational ethics." Now, individuals define good and evil as being adjustable according to each situation; this is in direct contrast to the proclaimed God-given absolute standard: "Thou shalt not!"-as in "Thou shalt not steal". — David B. Haight
It is difficult for me to regard anyone who obeys no moral principle in his conduct to be a religious man. — Mahatma Gandhi
There is no patent recipe for getting good citizenship. You get it by applying the old, old rules of decent conduct, the rules in accordance with which decent men have had to shape their lives from the beginning .. fundamental precepts, put forth in the Bible and embodied consciously or unconsciously in the code of morals of every great and successful nation from antiquity to modern times. — Theodore Roosevelt
At this point, an urgent question arises: [...] Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being, one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism? Briefly, is the division of labor, at the same time that it is a law of nature, also a moral rule of human conduct; and, if it has this latter character, why and in what degree? — Emile Durkheim
Natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new morality. — Thomas Huxley
The conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by the operations of its own reason. — Mary Wollstonecraft
Morality represents for everybody a thoroughly definite and ascertained idea: the idea of human conduct regulated in a certain manner. — Matthew Arnold
In Conclusion
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