With a great moral issue involved, neutrality does not serve righteousness; for to be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong. — Theodore Roosevelt
Medical ethics is a fascinating discipline, as it deals with issues replete with complex philosophical, moral, and ethical considerations that are rarely black or white. — Gad Saad
Ethics, decency and morality are the real soldiers — Kiran Bedi
Morality is a private and costly luxury. — Henry Adams
Surely if we have learned anything from the history of morals it is that the thing to do with a moral quandary is not to hide it. — H. L. A. Hart
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
The issue of human rights is one of the most fundamental human issues and also one of the most sensitive and controversial. — Ali Khamenei
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
Short Moral Issues Quotes
Morality and ethics automatically emerge when we realize the long term consequences of our actions. — Naval Ravikant
Society is constantly recalibrating, redefining what it considers to be moral and immoral. — John Hurt
Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons. — Thomas Hardy
More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency. — Peter Singer
Embryonic stem cell research is at the leading edge of a series of moral hazards. — George W. Bush
universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. — Arthur Schopenhauer
What is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. — Ernest Hemingway
Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice. — Leon Blum
Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situation that threaten your peace of mind, self respect, values, morals and self worth.
Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right, even if nobody is right. — Fulton J. Sheen
If we only discuss issues with people who agree with us, we stop learning and become self-righteous.
The heavy casualties, the constant retreat, the shortage of food and munitions, the difficulty of receiving reinforcements... all this had a very bad effect on morale. Many longed to get across the Volga, to escape the hell of Stalingrad. — Vasily Chuikov
... a bad attitude, that the love of money is the root of all evil and the rich are evil and greedy and all that stuff. It’s basically socialism and communism. — Robert Kiyosaki
About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. — Ernest Hemingway
Life is too short to stress yourself with people who don't even deserve to be an issue in your life.
To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals. — Mark Twain
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
The biggest difference between Jesus Christ and ethical and moral teachers who have been deified by man. Is that these moralists came to make bad people good. Jesus came to make dead people live! — Ravi Zacharias
Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty. — Lord Acton
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
A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.
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
If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. — Robert Noyce
Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
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
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
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
If we only discuss issues with people who agree with us, we stop learning and become self-righteous.
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
Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
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 Choices Quotes
One should choose the lesser of two evils. — Danish Proverbs
The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities. — Anthony Burgess
Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to 'a moral choice.' His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free. — John Pilger
Bad company ruins good morals.
Whether you do something or decide to do nothing, either way, you are making a moral choice. And I hope people make the right one. — Khaled Hosseini
The law is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the due process clause, the courts will be very busy indeed. — Byron White
Consumers have not been told effectively enough that they have huge power and that purchasing and shopping involve a moral choice. — Anita Roddick
Life is too short to stress yourself with people who dont even deserve to be an issue in your life.
All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice. — Theodore Bikel
When you're working on development issues, optimism is not always based on rational analysis, often it is a moral choice. — Jim Yong Kim
What happens in nature is no justification for our behavior, because we are animals of consciousness with the ability of moral choice. — Bryant H. McGill
True leadership is moral authority, not formal authority. Leadership is a choice, not a position. The choice is to follow universal timeless principles, which will build trust and respect from the entire organization. Those with formal authority alone will lose this trust and respect. — Stephen Covey
Moral Values Quotes
The State of Israel will prove itself not by material wealth, not by military might or technical achievement, but by its moral character and human values. — David Ben-Gurion
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
Every group, every system has a set of values and morals and when you get outside those, then the alarms ring. I was politically incorrect to 95% of the country; luckily my 5% had the bread to come see me. — Lenny Bruce
Every great advance...has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
Protest to be effective, must be followed by resolute action and at this crisis in world history when materialistic energy aims at overthrowing spiritual energy and moral values, action needs to develop into a world crusade for the Spiritual Humanity. — Vida Goldstein
Don’t judge yourself by others’ standards…have your own. And don’t get caught up into the trap of changing yourself to fit the world. The world has to change to fit you. And if you stick to your principles, values and morals long enough, it will. — Berry Gordy
Solidarity is not an act of charity, but mutual aid between forces fighting for the same objective. — Samora Machel
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
The needs of a human being are sacred. Their satisfaction cannot be subordinated either to reasons of state, or to any consideration of money, nationality, race, or color, or to the moral or other value attributed to the human being in question, or to any consideration whatsoever. — Simone Weil
When a hunter is in a tree stand with high moral values and with the proper hunting ethics and richer for the experience, that hunter is 20 feet closer to God. — Fred Bear
For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken
All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. — H. L. Mencken
Moral Beliefs Quotes
A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God. — Ravi Zacharias
A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them. — Emile Durkheim
I am frankly sick and tired of the political preachers telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? — Barry Goldwater
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
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
To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the prerogative of mindlessness, but the exact opposite: It is the reward of self-esteem. — Nathaniel Branden
No amount of belief makes something a fact. — James Randi
We see in Islam a religion that traces its origins back to God's call on Abraham. We share your belief in God's justice, and your insistence on man's moral responsibility. We thank the many Muslim nations who stand with us against terror. Nations that are often victims of terror, themselves. — George W. Bush
It is a mistake to try to impose Christian beliefs on children and to make them the basis of moral training. The moral education of children is much too important a matter to be built on such foundations. — Margaret E. Knight
Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and morality. — Dee Hock
Moral Decisions Quotes
The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction. — Fulton J. Sheen
If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt. — Naval Ravikant
Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea. Understand that your morality is not law. Understand that we are you. Understand that if we decide to have sex whether safe, safer, or unsafe, it is our decision and you have no rights in our lovemaking. — Derek Jarman
Morally, there was no ‘right decision,’ only a decision that was right for me. — Angela Duckworth
To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potentiality (which is always potentiality to do and not to do) — this is the perpetual illusion of morality. — Giorgio Agamben
I think that there are certain principles which should guide decision-making for a president. One such principle was that we're all God's children, and every life is precious. To me, that's a moral statement. — George W. Bush
Whatever I contributed to the unique morale of the Cardinals was part of this growth, and so, of course, was my decision to have it out in public with the owners of organized baseball. — Curt Flood
Sometimes, in order to follow our moral compass and/or our hearts, we have to make unpopular decisions or stand up for what we believe in. — Tabatha Coffey
True Grit is making a decision and standing by it, doing what must be done. No moral man can have peace of mind if he leaves undone what he knows he should have done. — John Wayne
My relationship with God is what gives me a moral compass on what decisions to make and that stuff. I'm thankful that I have the people around me that I do, and they remind me each day of who I am and what I stand for. — Alyson Stoner
Ethical Issues Quotes
The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture. — Gaylord Nelson
Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have been profound ethical issues confronting doctors since the birth of Western medicine, more than 2,000 years ago. — Ezekiel Emanuel
There’s policy issues like facial recognition and how to treat images of people that we need to address and work through. We need to figure out, like, where the sort of danger zones are — where the red lines are — and then clarify that over time. — Greg Brockman
Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I don't think it's an ethical or moral issue, or even that people are stupid, but I do feel like as a culture things are out of balance, perverted, and inverted. Things that are ridiculous are worshipped, and things that are important are ridiculed. I think that's something worth thinking about. — Ian MacKaye
I was aware of what animals go through because I had driven animals to slaughter and I'd killed animals. And I was aware that there were certain ethical issues, but they weren't preying on my mind very heavily. — Neal Barnard
Today, unfortunately, the right to vote seems to have become a partisan issue. Democrats seek to guarantee and expand voting rights. Republicans try to undermine and suppress voting rights. — Donna Brazile
There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior. — Derek Bok
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
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
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
You do design because you feel it inside; you have a moral issue to spread quality in our environment. — Massimo Vignelli
It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory. — George C. Marshall
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not... with regard to abortion and euthanasia. — Pope Benedict XVI
We are confronted primarily with a moral issue... whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. — John F. Kennedy
I think the issue of income and wealth inequality is in fact a moral issue. — Bernie Sanders
What we are doing to the future of our children, and the other species on the planet, is a clear moral issue. — James Hansen
I should be able to express moral views on social issues without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach ‘tolerance’ that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I’m in the public square. — Kirk Cameron
There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong - deadly wrong - to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States' rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights. — Lyndon B. Johnson
Everything that I'm seeing in America, when it comes to the groundwater contamination and the poisoning of people I see, it's a moral issue. Nobody's ever gonna convince me that a CEO wouldn't care if his own child was poisoned. — Erin Brockovich
The topdog may win the game of force. But not the moral issue - and when that dawns upon him and his allies, change of consciousness sets in, and demoralization starts thawing the frozen heart. The game is over. — Johan Galtung
The really difficult moral issues arise, not from a confrontation of good and evil, but from a collision between two goods — Irving Kristol
To meet the serious issues facing us in our respective communities today, we must be examples of virtue and righteousness ourselves and choose today to take our stand on the moral issues which threaten us. — Nathan Eldon Tanner
Lifestyle and livelihood are pivotal moral issues. — Stephanie Mills
I don't really consider this a political issue, I consider it to be a moral issue. — Al Gore
Time and again, I have written myself into a corner, pursuing an answer to the old conundrum: whether individuals are obligated to act against wrongdoing or are obliged by uncertainty to “hang fire,” in that picturesque Jamesian image. Stated another way, the dilemma is this: If we reject universal moral laws as an aspect of absolutism and adopt relativism in their stead, how are we to judge others and ourselves? The issue is not original, but it is critical nonetheless. I am not excused from having to confront it because I am unequipped to be a philosopher or a theologian or because so many other men and women have struggled with it. Each of us is required to take up the grave matters of the age and of the day, as though no one before us has considered them. — Norman Lock
The fundamental issue is the moral issue. — David Attenborough
Where LGBT and mental health issues collide is over stigma. And stigma is society's problem not the problem of the LGBT or mental health community. What we have to deal with is the ignorance, fear and prejudice that blight the lives of those who have nothing wrong with them in any moral or transgressive sense. It is society that is ill. — Stephen Fry
The ecological crisis is a moral issue. — Pope John Paul II
Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests. — C. Wright Mills
When you are talking about moral issues you are talking about same-sex marriage, which has been relegated over to the states. It's no longer a federal issue and yet, we are dealing with it like it's a federal issue but for a large degree it has become a state issue. — T. D. Jakes
Talking about sexual morality, I wouldn't agree that it's declining, but it's certainly changing. Young and old, we are very much in the process of taking a fresh look at the whole issue of morality. The only decline that's taking place - and it's about time - is in the old puritanical concept that sex is equated with sin. — Johnny Carson
There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction. — Ayn Rand
So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues. — Huston Smith
My work is based on the assumption that clarity and consistency in our moral thinking is likely, in the long run, to lead us to hold better views on ethical issues. — Peter Singer
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'm not trying to make political statements ,but theological statements. How can religion get itself so identified with one political party, exclusionary world views, or with "pelvic morality" as the defining issues of the Gospel? Jesus surely didn't. Jesus said to "preach the gospel to all nations", which means we do not just talk to ourselves. — Richard Rohr
I'm the kind of person who embarks on an endless leapfrog down the great moral issues. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal and rebut the refutation. Endlessly. — Tom Stoppard
The predominance of moral factors in all military decisions. On them constantly turns the issue of war and battle. In the history of war they form the more constant factors, changing only in degree, whereas the physical factors are different in almost every war and every military situation. — B. H. Liddell Hart
I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works - I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff. — Esther Dyson
Reliable scientific knowledge is value free and has no moral or ethical value. Science tells us how the world is. ... Dangers and ethical issue arise only when science is applied as technology. — Lewis Wolpert
Income inequality and wage stagnation finally took their place among the principal moral issues of our time. — David Rolf
If your voice is heard by more people because you've earned some kind of name and fame, your silence on an issue of urgent moral importance is even more of a betrayal. Privilege is obligation. — Ursula K. Le Guin
Increasingly, politics is not about "who gets what, when, how" but about values, each of them considered to be absolute. Politics is about "the right to life"...It is about the environment. It is about gaining equality for groups alleged to be oppressed...None of these issues is economic. All are fundamentally moral. — Peter Drucker
The moral issues with which Marcus struggles would be, as he points out, unchanged whether the universe were mechanical and devoid of meaning or value or ruled by deity or Providence; whether the will were in fact free or determined; whether there were or were not a future life, or any even fugitive rewards and punishments at all. — Kenneth Rexroth
When we talk about self-confrontations, we are speaking about moral issues rather than social issues. — Asghar Farhadi
The moral issue here is whether the United States Congress is going to stand in the way of science and preclude scientists from doing lifesaving research. — Rosa DeLauro
Ethics must begin at the top of an organization. It is a leadership issue and the chief executive must set the example. — Edward F. Hennessey
Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force? — Ayn Rand
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