The downfall of every civilization comes, not from the moral corruption of the common man, but rather from the moral complacency of common men in high places. — E. Digby Baltzell
Over the past two decades, we have clearly seen an erosion of ethical values. — Arthur Levitt Jr
Over the past two decades, we have clearly seen an erosion of ethical values. — Arthur Levitt
At the rate America is decaying morally, we shall have to change our national symbol from an eagle to a vulture. — Vance Havner
There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt. — Niccolo Machiavelli
Morality is a private and costly luxury. — Henry Adams
When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed — Ayn Rand
Morality, like other inputs into the social process, follows the law of diminishing returns- meaning ultimately, negative returns. People can be too moral. — Thomas Sowell
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. — Baron de Montesquieu
History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster. — Douglas MacArthur
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. — John Stuart Mill
Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situation that threaten your peace of mind, self respect, values, morals and self worth.
We live, we die, and like the grass and trees, renew ourselves from the soft earth of the grave. Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born. The faith of the villages is dust now... but it will grow again... like the trees. — Chief Joseph
Let the entire system of government be strengthened, and let the balance of power be drawn up in such a manner that it will be permanent and incapable of decay because of its own tenuity. — Simon Bolivar
A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.
EACH DAY OF HUMAN life contains joy and anger, pain and pleasure, darkness and light, growth and decay. Each moment is etched with nature’s grand design-do not try to deny or oppose the cosmic order of things. — Morihei Ueshiba
What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them? — Socrates
Middle age is youth without levity, and age without decay. — Daniel Defoe
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. — Harold Wilson
Moral Quotes
A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little. — Bernie Sanders
Seven Deadly Sins Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Science without humanity Knowledge without character Politics without principle Commerce without morality Worship without sacrifice. — Mahatma Gandhi
Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
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
If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something about it. — John Lewis
The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being. — Konrad Lorenz
Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
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
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. — John Adams
Do the right thing because it is right. — Immanuel Kant
...morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
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
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
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
Bad company ruins good morals.
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
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
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
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
Moral Duty Quotes
Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world. — Etty Hillesum
There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape. — Oriana Fallaci
We all have a moral obligation to leave this world a better place than the world that we've found. — Tim McIlrath
I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room while someone is dying. Books are written by the alone for the alone. — Donna Tartt
The propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained... — George Washington
Neither god, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical that promises success. — Henry Highland Garnet
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
If you would make a man happy, study not to augment his goods; but to diminish his wants. One of the greatest services Christianity has rendered the world has been its consecration of poverty, and its elevation of labor to the dignity of a moral duty. — Orestes Brownson
To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For he who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected. — George Washington
I think coercive taxation is theft, and government has a moral duty to keep it to a minimum. — William Weld
We've come a long way in our thinking, but also in our moral decay. I can't imagine Dr. King watching the 'Real Housewives' or 'Jersey Shore.' — Samuel L. Jackson
Today every city, town, or village is affected by it. We have entered the Neon Civilization and become a plastic world.. It goes deeper than its visual manifestations, it affects moral matters; we are engaged, as astrophysicists would say, on a decaying orbit. — Raymond Loewy
Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay. — Ann Coulter
I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion. It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society…unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool. — Tina Fey
Unfortunately, moral beauty in art -- like physical beauty in a person -- is extremely perishable. It is nowhere so durable as artistic or intellectual beauty. Moral beauty has a tendency to decay very rapidly into sententiousness or untimeliness. — Susan Sontag
If movies are causing moral decay, then crime ought to be going up, but crime is going down. — Jack Valenti
It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. — Lee Atwater
With each shimmy, the bugle beads on their scandalously revealing costumes swung and shook. It was the sort of display Evie knew her mother would have found appalling—an example of the moral decay of the young generation. It was sexual and dangerous and thrilling, and Evie wanted more of it. — Libba Bray
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — John Stuart Mill
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. — John Stuart Mill
I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul. — Lee Atwater
Why should it be thought incredible that the same soul should inhabit in succession an indefinite number of moral bodies? Even during this one life our bodies are perpetually changing, through a process of decay and restoration; which is so gradual that it escapes our notice. Every human being thus dwells successively in many bodies, even during one short life. — Francis Bowen
I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. — Lee Atwater
When trees mature, it is fair and moral that they are cut for man's use, as they would soon decay and return to the earth. Trees have a yearning to live again, perhaps to provide the beauty, strength and utility to serve man, even to become an object of great artistic worth. — George Nakashima
That government is best which governs the least, so taught the courageous founders of this nation. This simple declaration is diametrically opposed to the all too common philosophy that the government should protect and support one from the cradle to the grave. The policy of the Founding Fathers has made our people and our nation strong. The opposite leads inevitably to moral decay. — Ezra Taft Benson
The nation's morals are like its teeth: the more decayed they are the more it hurts to touch them. — George Bernard Shaw
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice - is often the means of their regeneration. — John Stuart Mill
Even the weather page is in a state of moral decay. What?s wrong with red, white and blue, USA Today? This rainbow weather map is just another example of the homometerological agenda. — Stephen Colbert
The first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence. — Jack London
In Conclusion
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